My Hero
by AddisonZhang
Summary: From the AU prompt: "Eren somehow ends up in the past and meets teen Levi struggling to live in the underground. They'd both be like awkward 15 year old's who maybe at first don't get along but eventually develop a crush...I just want lil thug Levi huddling up to Eren for warmth at night and both of them becoming A thugs surviving together and having awkward conversations..."
1. Chapter 1

"Tch. Don't tell me you're tired already, Eren," Levi drones. He's leaning back against the tree to my right, watching me with that cold, steely expression that makes me want to try harder and harder until…

Until I die, maybe, I don't know. I've never gone that far, he's never let me. He makes it seem like he will. He stands there staring until my legs are shaking so badly that I'm ready to fall over, until the sweat dripping into my eyes burns so much that I can hardly keep them open anymore, but then he always tells me to stop.

And sometimes when he walks past me on the way back to headquarters, he gives me a sharp pat on the back. That makes it all worth it.

But today his eyes are colder than ever and I'm well past the shaking and burning stage. I'm waiting for him to tell me to stop, waiting for that, _"Oi, Eren, that's enough. You did okay,"_ but it doesn't come.

A tremor runs through me and I bend to clutch my knees out of pure desperation, because I feel like I might fall over at any second. If my face wasn't already scalding red from the exertion then I would have been blushing from embarrassment. I hate to look this weak in front of the captain. I flick a glance up and accidently catch his eyes. Completely expressionless. Is he mad at me? Did I do something wrong today?

I've been partially transforming all day long, trying to gain better control of my titan shifting powers, but it's too much. I'm about ready to collapse—

"Again." His order catches me off guard. Again? Really? I glance up once more, wheezing terribly. I almost want to ask for mercy but I just can't bring myself to do it. If he wants me to try again then I have to try.

"Yes, sir," I hiss out, tensing up to rise into a standing position again. Every inch of my body is trembling like gelatin. _Come on, Eren, you can do it. Just one more time and then Levi Heichou will let you stop for the day. Only one more time…_

I try to focus on a specific task. Earlier today I use 'reach the top branch of that tree,' 'yank the tree from the ground with my bare hands,' and 'look above the trees to see the castle from here,' as a few of my tasks, but I have done this so many times by now that I've run out of ideas. The only thing I can come up with is, 'don't disappoint him.'

I don't really want to bite myself _again_. Some of the other marks from today still haven't healed. I know for a fact that I'm running out of juice and the doubts start swirling through my mind. Can I really do this even one more time? I can feel my heart beating in my temples, I'm on the verge of fainting…

But the thought is there, strong and clear through the haze: _Don't disappoint him._

It's such a real desire that during that first split second when my teeth sink into my hand, I am absolutely positive that it will work. Even when the world closes in on me like a black fog, I still believe for a moment that I will not let him down….

The captain's semi-surprised, "Oi! Eren!" is the last thing I remember.

* * *

Everything is black and slippery for a long time, like oil roiling over my eyes. Its luke warm and it drips slowly like thick, slimy rain, and I can't see anything through the darkness. I'm too tired to even attempt moving, but I have the feeling that if I try I won't been able to. The oil cools slowly, and it starts to chill my skin, especially around my eyes.

Then the thought comes to me softly—not in a panic as I had always assumed it would. It is a still, small voice similar to mine, whispering against my temple, _There you go, Eren, you're dying now. That's all it is. Just relax and enjoy it. _

It _does _feel rather nice, or at least it _had _before the black ooze had started cooling. But now it's getting uncomfortably cold.

I don't really want to die, and the more I think about it the more I chose to believe that that isn't what's happening. There was no way that I could seriously be dying. Heichou would never have allowed it. Never. Especially not when I was following his orders so nicely.

There is a smell in the distance. It's something rotten, like old food, or old feet, or old blood, and I can imagine it wafting toward me in thin yellow wisps that bounce off of the oil coating my face. I crinkle my nose without really trying, which is when I realize that movement isn't quite as impossible as I thought. But when I try to open my eyes the goo is too thick.

There is a sound far away, like tiny feet running and big feet walking, thumping slowly on cobble stone. Cobblestone?

I'm so cold! _Shit!_ I sit up all on one motion, like leaping out of a puddle of ice and I can hear myself gasping for breath as if I've been under for an impossibly long time. The cold drips off of me rather quickly. The sounds are closer now and so is that awful, god-forsaken smell. The black fades from my eyes drip by drip and they open to see a similar dimness, not so different from before.

_What the—?_

I have to blink a few times, purely out of habit—because there is nothing on my eyes—no oil—and nothing on my face or on my body at all actually. That comes as a shock.

"Fuck! He's not dead!"

"I already _told you_ that, dumbass."

I try to look around in the darkness to figure out where those little voices are coming from—and I do mean little, they must be kids talking—but that's when the fact that there's nothing on my body finally makes its way into my muddled brain. I'm naked, or at least _mostly_ naked, and that's enough to make me freeze the motion entirely.

"Shit!" comes the little voice again. "C'mon, let's get outta here."

"H—hey!" I stammer. My voice comes out pathetically unsure and it makes me a little angry.

"Let's go!" yells the other, and the little footsteps go bounding away.

Finally my legs come back to life and I push myself up, determined to stumble after them. Someone knows where the hell I am and where my clothes ran off to. As I start fumbling through the darkness, it occurs to me that my underwear have remained intact at least.

"Come back here!" I cry, hurrying to follow the pitter patter of small feet that are growing quieter and quieter by the second. I can hear them nervously barking things at one another as they flee. "Come on, come back!"

A wall hits me square in the face and I'm suddenly on my back. I stare up at nothing for a few moments, listening to the footsteps vanish, and then the oil finds me again.

* * *

When I wake again it's not because the ice became too much to handle, it's because my brain is pulsating so hard that it must be trying to break through my skull. I find myself laying in what appears to be a small alleyway.

I sit up—it hurts like hell, but I fight through it—and I try to get a sense of things. It must be morning now because there is some more light to work with than the last time I woke up, but honestly it's still pretty dark here.

Here? Where is here? Where the _hell _am I and how did I get here?!

I'm sitting on the cobblestone ground of a small alleyway, and from the lack of light and the fact that there are rocks and dirt where the sky should be, I decide that I'm underground somehow. As my eyes wander back downward, I notice the spatter of blood from where I must have run directly into the wall. Raising a hand to my face, I clarify—yup, definitely from that. My nose is throbbing almost as hard as my head, and the smears of blood trail all the way down onto my chest.

Oh yeah, and I'm still basically naked.

I grit my teeth in frustration. Being lost and confused and injured are bad enough, but being naked adds something especially unpleasant to the mix because_ I _sure as hell hadn't taken my own clothes off in the middle of town like this.

I remember the little voice from above, hovering over me, gasping_, "Fuck! He's not dead!"_

And that's when it clicks. Those little bastards stole all my stuff! My gear, my boots, my jacket…the small amount of money that I had had on me…and _still _it wasn't enough until they'd stripped me like this. I can't help but wonder if I'd interrupted them just in time to save me from total nudity. The thought makes me a little sick.

Once again, I find myself asking, where in God's name am I?

I lie down again, suddenly exhausted inside and out. I feel like shit. My body is in an unexplainable amount of pain—although one little broken nose shouldn't be enough to put me down like this. I just can't remember why I'm so sore and the frustration from that unexplainable weakness mixed with everything else is enough to make we wish that the oblivion of the oil will come and take me away again.

But no such luck. Not three minutes after having closed my eyes, I feel something flicking around my head. I consider waving my hand at it to make it go away. Damn fly. I'm too tired right now.

Suddenly, something is grabbing a fistful of my hair and yanking on it. I give a yelp of surprise and jump up. "What the hell?!" I practically shriek. What is _wrong _with this place?! "Seriously, what the fuh—" But the words die on my tongue and I'm left open mouthed and staring.

It's not a fly, not even close. It's a person. And not just any person, either, it's _him._

The pale skin, the tiny build, the silent, motionless expression, the straight black hair falling in that certain way down the sides of his head—God! He even has the same hair? I mean, it's a hell of a lot messier and there's a little more of it, but it's the _same_. It has to be him.

"Levi Heichou?" I croak out, barely breathing.

He had let go of my hair when I'd jumped back up into a seated position, and now his hand hovers slightly above his right thigh. He is crouching down in front of me, staring coldly just like always.

"Heichou?" he repeats blankly. "Fuck off." And then he's getting up and walking away from me.

"Wait!" I gasp, lunging out without thinking and snagging him by the ankle. I don't even know how exactly he hit me, all I know is that it made me let go. "Wait, please!" I shout through the pain, crawling blindly after him as my nose starts leaking red once again. "Levi!"

He stops, much to my relief, but when he turns back toward me the angry glint in his eyes is enough to make me have to hold back a whimper. "How do you know my name?" he snarls.

The blood from my nose is thick and it makes it hard to talk, so I just stare up at him. That's when it hits me. He's _so_ small. I mean, he's always been pretty tiny, but now he's practically miniscule. Even laying on the ground, I don't have to look up that far to meet his angry silver eyes. I really want to stand up and see if I'm right about this, but I can't find the strength yet.

And it's not just the height. He's usually short but now he's not just vertically challenged, he's also scrawny. Like, _starving_ to death scrawny.

"Hey, dumbass. I asked you a question," he snaps. He may be smaller but apparently he's the same old Levi.

I struggle to remember what the original question was. "I…uh…" Oh yes, his name. "I think we've met before," I stammer pathetically. I can tell that he's not satisfied with my answer by the way that his small, soft jaw clamps a little tighter.

"We haven't," he says.

"Are you sure?" I prop myself up on my elbow and spit some of the blood out onto the cobblestone. "I could swear—"

"We haven't," he says again, very firmly this time, making a face like I've done something repulsive, and somehow it's too adorable to make me believe that he's actually getting angry. The way his eyes seem too big for his pale little head, the fact that the adam's apple is missing from his throat…yes, definitely. No matter how insane it may seem, I can't shake the thought. Levi is younger, _drastically_ younger than before.

I can't help it, I have to know. "How old are you?" I ask, trying to make my voice as calm and unthreatening as possible.

This seems to throw him off guard a little, though not much. "Tch, what kind of question is that?" he says once the flicker of surprise has vanished from his face. He may have refused to answer, but at least he's talking to me, I realize.

"What were you doing before?" I ask, switching trains of thought to how he had grabbed my hair so roughly.

He shrugs. "Thought you were dead."

"So?"

"Laying around naked in the street."

"Yeah, so? Somebody took my clothes," I admit, blushing a little. He may be young but he's still Levi Heichou to me.

"So I was gonna take your hair…maybe."

"My _hair_?" What could he possibly want with my hair?

He hesitates to answer and his gaze dips away from mine for a second. Why? I wonder. Guilt? Shame? No, it couldn't be. Not from Levi…

"I…was gonna try to sell it," he admits, and his voice is quiet. "Sorry. Didn't think you'd be needing it. Like I said, I—"

"You thought I was dead," I gently finish for him, far too amazed by the fact that Humanity's Strongest had just _apologized_ to me. His eyes dart back up into mine, no longer hesitant or guilt ridden now that I don't seem angry with him.

"Yeah I did. And you have a fucking mop up there." I can't help but laugh at that.

Pressing my palms solidly against the cobblestone for support, I slowly push myself up to my feet. My legs are a little shaky so I have to focus on steadying them. Small Levi's ever-staring eyes are looking up at me. And I do mean _looking up. _I've always been taller, but now I am practically towering over him. He barely comes up to my chest.

"How old are you?" I ask again.

He makes an annoyed little noise and says, "Fifteen."

"No you're not," I say matter-of-factly, because there's no possible way that we're the same age. He looks about eight.

Now he's ticked off and he's leaving again. I know better than to grab him this time. "Hey wait," I say, sounding more like a diplomat than I have ever managed before in my life. "I'm sorry, you just look young that's all. It's a good thing. Probably get's you spoiled."

He stops moving very abruptly, as if my words have struck him somehow, but he doesn't turn back from the mouth of the alley.

"I'm in kind of a tough spot," I continue, a little less confidently. I take a step toward his back. "I hit my head and now I have no idea where I am or how I got here—honestly. And, as you can see, I'm not doing so well on my own so far. Do you live around here?"

"Sort of," he says after a long silence, and his voice is cold again.

"Do you think you can help me out? I can't go out onto the main road looking like this, can I?" I try to make my voice attractive and amusing. Anything to get him to stay awhile longer.

Sure enough he turns back around and appraises me with that steady gaze. His eyes wander over my disheveled form without flinching. The broken nose, the bloodied upper body, the messy mop of hair…When he won't stop staring, I start to blush again and I have to mentally argue with my hands to stay at my sides instead of covering my front like they want too.

Of all the things I had envisioned about Levi Heichou, having his fifteen-year-old self stare at me in my underwear was never on the list.

"You're right," he says after what feels like lifetimes, "you need some clothes."

"Yeah, for sure," I say brightly, thrilled to keep him around even if only for a while longer. I want to know everything that I possibly can about this Levi. Like why is he so small? And why does he act exactly as the same as the Levi Heichou in my head? And still, the biggest question of all: where am I?

I'm so lost in the possibilities that I almost miss him add, "—but even a retard like you should know, I don't do _shit_ for free."

"Huh?"

He flashes me a glare that's almost more frightening that Big Levi's is, "After I get you some clothes, you owe me. Got it?"

I feel the words leave my mouth, but I don't hear them. "G-got it."


	2. Chapter 2

He tells me to 'stay put' and then he vanishes just as silently as he came.

With him gone, I start to feel lost again. It's cold underground since there's no sun to warm anything, and my bare skin is covered with goose bumps. My hands rub up and down my arms unconsciously. Why would anyone want to live in a city underground? I wonder, looking back up at the rocky ceiling. I wonder how thick it is, and what's up above it.

From the sliver of openness between the brick walls that I can see through, I notice two people walking by the alleyway on the main road, barely lit by the abundant candle light that seems to simulate daytime down here. There's a man in a tattered old coat and a girl tagging along behind him. When she turns her gaze on me, I instantly tense up and scuttle back into the corner, out of view.

I hope that he'll come back soon. Whether he's tiny and strange or not…somehow he still seems like Levi to me. He's something that I can latch onto when nothing else makes any sense.

Which—really—the weirdness of my current situation rivals even the circumstances from which I met Levi Heichou the first time. At least, at that time, I generally knew where I was and what had caused my immediate predicament, whereas now I can't remember where I am or how I got here or even what led up to my arrival.

When I try to remember, all I can picture is the oil and the cold and the throbbing pain assaulting my temples in the darkness. All of the memories that I assume occurred sequentially before that sensation are just blurry bits and pieces. I can recall my feet in the grass behind a large building, my hands—sweating, shaking—clutching onto tree bark, I see a flash of Levi's cold grey gaze from afar on horseback, and I feel my knees bruising against the hard floor of a room full of people. The first clear memories don't start until as far back as the cell in the basement where Levi leaned up against the bars saying, _"I will take responsibility for him, you can tell that to the brass. I don't think anyone will complain. I'm the only one for the job, after all." _

It's been awhile since he left, I think nervously once I come to accept that the damp underground chill has permanently absorbed into my skin. I find myself craning my neck to peer out of the sliver in the mouth of the alley, hoping to see him at any moment, but he doesn't come.

The thought comes cold and terrifying after at least two and a half hours in the corner: what if he doesn't come back at all?

_Nah, don't think like that, Eren, _I try to comfort myself. _This is Levi we're talking about. He may be mean and cranky…and violent and rude…but still! He always pulls through when people need him._

It's at hour three that I lose faith in that kind of rational. The Levi I'm thinking of was Levi _Heichou_, a man who might exist only in my hazy memories, for all I know. The Levi I'm waiting on…well, he's the one who tried to cut the hair off of my corpse. So far, he's done nothing to make be believe that he'll actually come back for me.

If only I still had my clothes and my gear, then I wouldn't be stuck here waiting on his mercy like this. The more I think about it, the more helpless I feel. And that makes me angry. I hug my legs to me chest, tucking my chin against my knees and gritting my teeth against the frustration. I can't believe I let myself get into this kind of a position in the first place!

Time drags on at a torturous rate. There's nothing to do but drown in my own destructive thoughts. At some point I start to consider heading out on my own and just forgetting about Levi entirely, but the idea is quickly discarded. If even children have no problem stripping corpses, then I don't want to know what the adults down here are capable of.

And then all of a sudden I've lost track of time completely and I'm curled up staring at the cobblestone, thoughtless, emotionless. Just freezing and nothing else.

_He's not coming back, _I decide blankly, and my eyes close.

* * *

The toe of a boot pokes my cheek and wakes me up with a jolt. I cover my head defensively, still buried under a thick sleep, hoping that I won't have to fight for what little I have left on me that could be of value. I try to say something but nothing comes out. Instead, my darting, panicked eyes travel upward from the pair of worn out old boots and up the patchy, holey old pants to discover Levi. He is glaring down at me coldly. Once my wide eyes connect with his, he turns away, grunting,

"Couldn't wait for five minutes, you dumb shit?"

That's sparks something in me and I'm on my feet in a second, sleep forgotten. "Five minutes? Try five hours! What the hell took you so long?" And then, softer, as I remember who I'm talking to, "I thought you weren't coming back."

"Tch."

We don't say anything for a few moments. He stands with his side turned to me, not really moving, and in the silence I notice for the first time just how _un-Heichou-like _he looks. The boot that had prodded my face to wake me is a poor excuse for foot cover, especially when compared to my military boots. They're short, only going up to his ankles. The bottoms are so worn down that when he lifts his feet to move I can see the pale flesh of his heels, stained black by walking through the streets, and on the right foot I can see his big toe through a hole in the leather. His trousers had been a light brown color at one point, I notice, but now they're a patchwork of other materials where the fabric has worn through—especially on the knees and the seat of his pants—and the cloth is speckled with all kinds of unrecognizable stains from what I can only guess is years of wear and tear. And on top of it all, they're a bit big for him. They wrinkle where he's stuffed the extra-long pant legs into the boots. The shirt is as tattered as the rest of it.

It's just too strange to process—Levi, looking this disheveled. I think back to the neat, white cravat and the perfectly pressed Survey Corp jacket…the Levi in my head wouldn't be caught dead looking like this.

Suddenly he's turning back to face me, disrupting my thoughts by saying, "Here. Hurry up and get dressed. We gotta go." And then I'm fumbling to catch the bundle of clothes that he shoves against my chest without warning.

There's a pair of black pants that look about my size, a remarkably unstained white shirt, a tattered old cloak the color of pea soup—which could just have been a worn out old military cloak, if I stretched my imagination a little—and a pair of grey shoes without soles.

"Thanks," I mutter, slipping things on over awkwardly long limbs. I try not to glance over at him as I dress, just in case he's watching me. I don't know why I'm so embarrassed, but the feeling is overwhelming. Regardless of status or stature, this Levi is an absolute mind-fuck, just like Heichou.

As I put each item on, I can't help but notice the disjointed look of the outfit—not that it bothers me at all, I was never one to care about fashion. It's just that the disunity of the items joined with the fact that Levi's own clothes are to tattered and filthy makes me question where he could have found these things.

_He stole them? _I think, incredulously, as I fasten the last piece—the cloak—around my neck, tying a neat bow at the dip in the base of my throat. It's hard to believe—Heichou stealing things. But then again, the hair incident makes it pretty clear that this Levi is not beyond stooping to low levels, and that could be an explanation for what took him so long.

It's clear that he must have been watching me dress, because the exact second that I finish he says, "Ok come on. And keep up."

I follow him out of the alleyway and into the street, seeing the underground city in half-way decent lighting for the first time. It's hard to keep up with Levi's shockingly quick strides despite the fact that I'm so much taller, but from what I can make out while struggling to follow him through the small, winding streets, it seems like this isn't much of a city, after all. The buildings are all worn down and huddled together. The cobblestone and dirt paths are so twisted that sometimes they turn back around on themselves. There's a very short span of visibility at any point, considering that the only source of light are candles and lanterns hung from the less run down building fronts, and even with them lit—even if the sun was shining down on this place—you still couldn't see very far because of the convoluted lay out of things. It's like a maze. Clearly there had been no city plan. Instead, people just put up rickety old wooden buildings and lean-to's wherever they could lay claim to the ground, and from out of that the roads had built themselves.

Levi glances over his shoulder only once to make sure that I'm still following him, but I suppose he can hear me walking. Unlike his silent footsteps, I notice that mine are annoyingly loud, especially on the cobblestone.

After we have walked far enough that I'm certain I would be lost in this maze forever if he wasn't here to guide me, Levi suddenly stops at the end of a street, right in front of a particularly shady looking pawn shop. I open my mouth to ask what's going on, but he silences me with a finger to his lips.

"Look," he whispers, leaning up a bit to make sure that I'll hear him.

I follow his gaze with wide eyed interest when he looks around the corner of the street. The way he tilts his small body and cranes his neck backward to look without being seen by anyone on the other side makes my heart speed up a bit. _That_ looks like Heichou.

"See that building?" he hisses once I've leaned forward far enough to get a glimpse of the shack just around the bend. It's half way into an alleyway in a very shady, dim lit, backstreet type of area.

"Mmhmm," I say softly. I'm close enough to him that I assume he can hear me. I had had to stretch over him a bit to get a good look and now my right foot is hovering awkwardly in mid-air, trying not to step on his toes.

"Take a good look," he says, turning back and slipping underneath my arm like a snake. Suddenly he's behind me, saying, "That's what we're doing tomorrow."

I'm not sure what he means by that, but I try my best to 'take a good look,' anyway. It's such a shady looking alleyway—significantly wider than the one I spent the night in but still cramped toward the back right hand corner where the shack was set up. It looked to be about twenty square feet of worn out of wooden planks precariously held together somehow. I couldn't see the interior from here and I had no guess as to what was inside, but I was rather proud of myself when I noticed that there was a very small alley passage leading out from the back left hand side of the shack to some other road way.

"Ok, let's go," he was saying from behind me, jabbing the back of my shoulder to make me follow him again. I pulled my gaze away from the scene around the corner a little reluctantly, hoping that I'd seen everything he wanted me to.

By the time we seem to be getting to our final destination, I guess that it's nearly nightfall above the surface again—either that or we're getting into even poorer, shadier areas of the city—because the amount of candles and lanterns lit slowly dwindle as we walk and becomes extremely difficult to see more than ten feet ahead.

"Where are we going now?" I ask in the long, long silence. I'm used to a lack of words from Heichou, but even he talks much more than this Levi does.

He hesitates so long that I think he might not answer me at all, but then he says, "…to sleep for the night."

"Where?" I ask, and by the way his shoulders stiffen I can tell that that was the reason for his initial reluctance to answer. He does not reply for a full minute. Not until we've rounded the corner into the dimmest, dampest area thus far: a little alcove off of a back road.

Finally, "Here."

"Here?" I half-gasp, staring open-mouthed at what little I can make out in the darkness. I stop dead in the mouth of the alcove while Levi goes on ahead not stopping to see if I'm coming or not.

There's piles of trash looming like black beasts in the shadows. I can make out an old wooden trunk so far decomposed by the moisture that it's crumbling and covered in mold on one side. There's old wooden planks scattered everywhere, like the ones the buildings are made of, only these are the throw-aways, too far gone to be of use to anyone anymore.

And that smell, that hideous _stench _that I saw as yellow tentacles bouncing off of my face in some unclear reality suddenly assaults me again. I try not to gag but it's so overwhelming here that tears spring into my eyes unwillingly.

"Holy shit, Hei—I mean, L-Levi," I choke out, gasping through the haze.

Apparently I've struck a raw nerve, because the tone of his next words is _so_ biting that it can have no other purpose than covering up a wound. "Hilarious, dumbass. Now get in here, sit your ass down, and go the fuck to sleep before I take my clothes back and let you die again."

I gulp down my reservations and tiptoe into the alcove as if I'm following an order. I just barely manage to contain the habitual, "yes, sir."

It's about fifteen feet in back to the edge of the alcove and most of it is littered with garbage. I cannot believe Levi—Levi who made me clean the garden, the _outdoors_—lives in a dump like this. I soon discover where the nauseating smell is coming from. There are pipes coming out of the alley walls, like sewage pipes leaking out filthy water into puddles on the ground. I do my best to avoid them.

Finally, after what feels like another maze navigation, I settle on the ground in between a puddle and a pile of rotting wood against the wall. I twist my legs up and fold my hands neatly in my lap, trying to be smaller. That's a bit of an advantage for him here, I realize.

When I glance up from my folded hands to glance at him, unsure, I see him settled just a few feet away from me, laying down on his side, facing in my direction. That's when I see them.

They could almost have been shadows, but somehow I know better. He's been squirming around, turning away all day, so I haven't gotten any great looks at his face. But now they're clear even in the darkness, like polka-dots all over him, purple and black, some old, some green. The new ones are the worst and I know for a fact that they were not there when we met this morning. His left eye is swollen and tight on the top eyelid and it's blue in the corner by the bridge of his nose. There's a crusted over cut on his lip, and it doesn't stop on his face. There're all over his arms, too, the size of smeary fingerprints.

"Levi," I say, stunned and probably gawking.

"_What_?" he snaps, cold and unflinching as metal, challenging me, daring me to say another word about it. His eyes have orders in them. Don't say another word about it. Don't insult me again, they say. You think I want to live here? You think I like this? Shut the fuck up. I found you naked in an alley. Don't say another word, they order.

My gaze falls away. _Shit_, I think_. How is this Levi?_

People are blowing out their candles around the corners and it grows steadily darker as night descends on us. My stomach gives a shamefully loud rumble and I realize that I haven't eat at all since…well, I can't remember.

I want to ask if he has any food. Maybe he ate when he left to find clothes for me. _No, to steal clothes,_ my subconscious reminds me pointedly, and I sneak another glance at his marked up body. Maybe things didn't go very smoothly.

"Did you eat?" I have to ask after it roars at me again.

"Tomorrow," he says. "That's what you have to do for me. I need a diversion."

This gets my heart going at once. "What do you mean?"

His eyes meet mine and they're a little less cold than before. Maybe he's already gotten over me gagging. "Remember that shack back there? Some assholes are gonna bring food there tomorrow, stuff they stole from the rations station."

"Rations station?" I question, but he keeps talking right over me, his small face moving quickly against the dirt he lays on, rubbing it into his skin.

"If you distract them from the front, I can get in from the back way and steel one of their crates."

I should have a lot of questions to ask him, like how does he know this? And how am I supposed to distract them when I know absolutely nothing about this area? But instead, all that's in my head is a sense of pride for having noticed the back entrance that he mentioned.

"When? Tomorrow morning?" I finally ask, once he's been quiet long enough for me to be certain he's done explaining. He nods instead of talking. "Okay," I say after a while, because I'm not really in a position to refuse, not to mention that I'm hungry. Somewhere in the back of my head I wonder if this is how he always has to get food: by planning raids on other criminals. I quickly push the thought away.

"What's your name?"

"Huh?"

He's always doing that—being quiet for so long that I get lost in my own thoughts, and then suddenly piping up again, shattering everything.

"You wanna tell me your name or should I keep calling you 'dumbass,' dumbass?"

"Oh." When I look to his face again, his eyes are closed. "It's Eren."

"Hmm."

I roll my legs out from under me and try to lie down without getting my feet in the puddle. I have to curl up quite a lot and it's not very comfortable, but I try to stop shifting around as quickly as possible, assuming that Levi is already trying to sleep.

We need our sleep after all, if there's any chance of this thing working out tomorrow. I try not to think about all of the possible outcomes. In fact, I try not to even think about what we're doing at all.

_Gonna get some food, Eren, that's all, _I assure myself, trying to leave the fact that we're going to be stealing from some potentially very dangerous people completely out of it. And if the bruises he's got are just from stealing clothes for me….

_No, don't think about it. You need the food. You trust him. He's Levi Heichou…he is, somehow he is. It'll be fine. _


	3. Chapter 3

I wake up in the morning and find myself frozen in the scrunched position that I somehow managed to fall asleep in. My knees are unbearably stiff. Blinking back the sleep from my eyes, I do my best to straighten out again. The stretch is agony and the fact that my feet slosh into the filthy puddle by accident makes me groan. My nose wrinkles in disgust. "Ugh, yuck." The words slip out unconsciously and I instantly glance over to Levi to see if he's heard me.

But no, I see that he is still sleeping.

I watch his face, intrigued. Honestly, I'm really surprised that he hadn't woken up at the sound of me moving around just now. The Levi Heichou that I knew was ever watchful and alert. And he would never ever_ ever_ sleep on the dirty ground surrounded by garbage. I still just can't believe that this is him.

But staring at his sleeping, peaceful face, there is no denying it. His brows are relaxed, completely different from his usual furrowed expression, and his thin, pale lips are parted slightly. The long strands of black hair toward the front of his head fall lazily across his brow and the bridge of his nose. I can't help but let out a shaky breath of inexplicable happiness. I always wanted to see a happy expression from Heichou—or at least, a pleasant one—and now I am getting that, no matter how odd this situation is.

Still, the bruises on his face and body are like dark, ugly stains, marking the moment. I can't picture how he got them no matter how hard I try. Levi is Levi! Humanity's Strongest. They don't call him that for nothing. The image of him being tossed around...manhandled…being hit…No, it's too impossible for my mind to grasp.

_Getting his ass beat…sleeping on the streets…going hungry…that sounds like me, not Heichou. _

He begins to stir and I blush at the sleepy way that he scrunches up his face, and when he brushes his forearm over his eyes I have to look away, embarrassed. If Big Levi ever caught me watching him like this, I know for a fact that he would beat my brains in.

"Uh, good morning," I mutter, making my voice sound sleepy on purpose so that he won't realize I've been awake for a while.

I'm surprised when he answers right away. "Did you sleep at all?"

"Yeah," I reply, a question in my voice. It's an odd thing for him to ask in reply to 'good morning.'

"Good," he says with a yawn big enough to distort his entire face. He props himself up onto an elbow and then pushes himself up into a seated position. I follow suit, folding my legs again to avoid any more soakers in the puddle. To my shame, as soon as I'm up again my stomach immediately starts its needy whining.

He eyes the hand that instinctively reaches up to grab my stomach and frowns a little. "Yeah, me too."

My eyes jump up to meet his, shocked at his wry yet gentle tone. He watches me steadily, not breaking the gaze, even as my stomach growls again and my cheeks flash a deep shade of crimson. There's something so serious in his big, grey eyes and his small round face…yet, I just can't help but think that he looks even younger this morning than he did yesterday.

His next words make me freeze. "You're still gonna help me, right?"

My mouth falls open slightly and my eyebrows leap up and then scrunch down. _Are you still gonna help me? _As if I would suddenly change my mind after he spent half a day getting pounded to find clothes for me? Why would he even ask something like that? I keep staring at him, almost wondering if it was a rhetorical question. The serious concern hidden in his eyes tells me that it's not. He had barely even asked for my agreement in the first place, so why was he fishing for it now?

_"Oi, Eren, do this…do that…it's an order…" _That's what I'm used to from Heichou, not this.

_Could it be because of all of this? _I wonder, a sick feeling joining with aching hunger that's tearing at my insides. _Now that I've seen all of this—how he lives—does he think that I don't think he's worth helping? _

"Of course I will!" I say, a little too forcefully, and he instantly returns to his grouchy, self-sufficient mask of 'fuck-off-ness.' And that's better than the pitiful hidden plea behind sleepy, swollen black-eyes, I decide. "What should I do to help…exactly?"

"I'll take you back to that corner we were at last night."

"By the pawn shop?"

"Yeah. Then I'll leave and go to that back street so I can get into their shack when the time comes."

"And I…?"

"What _you _have to do is just wait around until you see them coming. Make sure they have the stuff and then once they're about half way done putting it into the shack, you gotta really get their attention somehow so I can sneak in, grab a crate and then we can get the hell out of there."

I can already feel my palms starting to sweat from the nerves again. This just sounds way too dangerous, especially since I feel anything but confident right now. "Uhh…how do you think I should distract them?"

He stares at me with no expression, saying nothing. It's such a familiar look…

"I mean, how would you do it if you were me?"

He sighs—not a pleasant sigh but an, _"Ugh…shitty brat,"_ kind of sigh. "I don't know, I improvise," he says. Totally unhelpful. I must visibly shrink a little at the thought of just_ improvising _in that kind of situation, because he adds, "Talk to them, annoy them, pretend to be lost. They'll tell you to get the hell out of their way but if you bug them long enough they're bound to stop what they're doing for a bit…even if it's just to slug you."

My heart drops a little. He wants me to get beat up on purpose. If this is his default strategy then it's no wonder that he's covered in bruises. "There's no other…methods?" I ask, trying not to sound shaky.

"If you can think of something else, then be my guest. Just don't fuck this up; I'm fucking starving."

* * *

He drops me off at the corner by the pawn shop. "Good luck," he says without looking at me, and then he vanishes. Along the way he made me pay special attention to how we got here from the place we had slept in, so that I would be able to find my way back afterward. My brain is already spinning with nerves, though, and I doubt I'll be able to navigate this maze in such a frazzled state.

_You have to stay calm, Eren, _I urge myself. _You can't mess this up. Just pretend it's like any mission that Lei Heichou would give to you. Easy. _

Since he told me that I would definitely notice when the time was right, I assume that the thieves will come right down this road and turn into the corner right next to where I'm waiting. I realize that just standing there waiting for them will be way too obvious, so I go into the pawn shop to have a look around. There's a lot of strange things inside: trinkets and old bottles, messily woven baskets and scarves with holes in them—basically all junk. But still, when I reach out to touch a particularly soft looking, albeit torn shawl, the shop lady appears out of no where and slaps my hand away.

"Outside, you little worm!" And I find myself back on the corner. Nothing happens for a long time so I plop down on the cobblestone and lean back against the building.

After about an hour—just when I think my stomach is about to start eating itself—I notice a large wagon being pulled up the street. It's loaded heavy with big wooden things that look like boxes. Those must the crates that Levi was talking about. There is a thin, tattered blanket tossed over the top of them, obscuring most of them from my sight. It must be a pretty heavy haul, because it takes two men to move it—one pushing from behind and one pulling the rope on the front.

I make a move to get up but then I stop myself. A new idea pops into my head.

"Oi….please sir, some money?" I call out weakly once they're only a few yards away from me. I cup my hands and hold them out like a beggar. They ignore me completely, as I half expected. So I keep on rambling, "Please sir, spare some money? I'm starving, sir, please. Some money? Just one coin. I'll bless you forever…." My voice is annoying and tinny, even to my own ears. Hopefully it'll annoy them enough to get their attention. Although, Levi wants me to wait to_ really_ side track them until they're nearly done unloading the wagon, so I guess I'll have to keep this up for a while.

"What about you, sir?" I call, looking to another of the thugs as they pass directly in front of me. I shove my arms out toward him as far as they can reach. "Please just one coin? My mom's sick…there's nothing in the house, please have some pity."

He shoots me a quick glance that shows no pity whatsoever. I feel a lump forming in my throat at the sight of his face. All of these men are huge. There are six in total, and each one is much bigger than me and infinitely bigger than Levi. My courage starts to slip away, but I pull it back, determined not to disappoint him.

They pass me and round the corner, heading toward the shack I saw last night. I get up on shaky legs and follow them. "And you? What about you? Have some mercy on a poor boy, please sir, just one coin, I'll leave you alone, I promise."

The one that I'm talking to now turns toward me sharply and I can't help but flinch, fearing the punch that I assume it coming. But to my shock, he just reaches into his breast pocket and throws a coin at my head without even looking at my face. The coin bounces right between my eyes. I fumble around to catch it, but it clatters to the ground a second later and scatters across on the cobblestone.

_Shit, that didn't take as long as it needs to._

I drop down onto my hands and knees and scurry to pick it up, purposefully missing it and swiping it along the ground several times, just so I can weave in between their feet. I hear an annoyed grumble from one of them as he steps out of my way.

"Oh thank you, sir! Thank you so much!" I'm crying, almost unconsciously as my shaky fingers play with the coin, daftly failing to pick it up. I glance over toward the back entrance to the alleyway. There's no sign of Levi.

A brief flash of panic washes over me. What if he doesn't show up? But I shake it away at once. He's clearly just too stealthy for me to notice.

One of them gives me a light kick to the side and I slide on all fours. "Come on, kid, get the hell out of here."

I notice that some of them are starting to unload the crates, taking them out of the wagon, disappearing into the shack, and then returning with empty arms, ready to carry more. That's my cue. I grab the coin and clutch it in my hand making a fist around it. Then I crawl out from between their legs, making sure to bump into them as much as possible without being obvious. One of them snarls angrily as he has to take a step back to regain his balance. "Ugh, you little shit!" He snags me by the collar yanks me to my feet in a blink. His breath is hot and foul in my face as he growls, "Get the hell out of here before we have to teach you a lesson."

"Oh no, I'm sorry. Thank you, thank you, thank you so much!" I keep saying, because if I stop talking I'm afraid I'll accidently drop the act and just start crying out of fear. He drops me onto the ground and I land it a heap. I shuffle forward and grab onto a different man's pant legs, I don't know what else to try. "God bless you!"

The man who picked me up before kicks me, and this one is hard and it _hurts._ I curl up a bit and bite my lip to keep from crying out in pain. "Ahh sir, please, just let me…" I don't even know what I'm saying anymore, I just know that I haven't let go of the pant legs and now I'm pressing my face against his lower leg. He starts shaking me off and I get kicked in the behind again, this time breaking my hold.

I'm dragged up again and someone is saying, "Get the _fuck _out of here, boy, before I give you something else." His voice is full of malicious laughter.

I gulp down the lump in my throat and pretend like I don't understand the insinuation at all. "Really? The blanket? Can you give me that old blanket, too? Oh, yes! Please, sir, it gets so cold down here at night and mom's _so sick_—"

He cuts me off with a punch to the face that has me seeing stars and then I'm flat on my back and the pain doesn't stop. One blow leads to another and I can almost picture what's happening from out of body. This wouldn't be the first time I've been beaten up by many people, but it's the first time with a bunch of large men. Usually it was just other kids…

It's surprisingly painful, even for me, and as it drags on I just keep thinking over the demeaning angry words and the sound of blows, _Hurry up, Levi…_

Although, it occurs to me that if he comes back to help me, then the whole point of the mission is sort of ruined. He needs to get the food and get out of here…

The thought makes me a little sad, especially when the tears start and threaten to spill out. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" I keep crying, but they don't hear me. The pain is becoming over whelming, but I realize that I just have to wait it out and hope that it's worth it in the end.

And then out of no where it comes to a staggering halt, the blows slowing and then ceasing in a matter of seconds. My head is ringing so loudly that I don't hear the beginning of what's being said. _What's…why…?_

I look up through aching, blurry, swelling eyes and see Levi dangling against the chest of the largest of the men, held in place by two thick arms twisted tightly around his body, a hand grabbing onto his face. The other hand holds a knife.

_Oh no…_I look around frantically wondering how I could possibly have failed when all of these men were preoccupied with beating me senseless. I count them in the back of my head and my heart sinks. There's only five of them gathered around me. The one who has Levi caught is number six. _Shit!_

He struggles furiously in the arms of the man—who is practically a giant compared to Levi's miniscule stature—but the man has barely any trouble holding him. Even when Levi bangs the back of his head into the man's face, he is still not released. It only makes the hand on his face squeeze tighter, contorting the soft, already discolored flesh until Levi gives a little shout of pain. "Look what I found sneaking around by our haul, boys," his captor announces, strolling over to join the other thugs.

"Oh…I see what's going on here," says the one who kicked me first. He glances between the two of us and waggles a finger at Levi. "This one…"

"Tiny little fucker, ain't he?" says another, and the man holding Levi twists his arms up even tighter around him. I'm still on the ground, practically beneath Levi's dangling feet, and I can see the tension in his body. My heart is chugging out of control.

_This is bad, this is so bad._

"—recognize this one," the one who kicked me first is saying, coming over to look Levi straight in the face. I see Levi narrow his eyes at him stubbornly. "Holy shit! Yeah, I know this face." He reaches out and grabs Levi's nose, which is stuck in between the big man's middle and ring finger already. He gives the nose a tug and then slaps him on the cheek. Levi lets out an angry growl. "Hey, you guys remember this kid?"

"Yeah, I seen him around," says another, coming closer to look at him. I see Levi squirm in their grasp as more and more of the thugs have their interests peaked.

"Oh my god," explodes the obnoxiously boisterous laughter of the fourth man—the one who had cruelly threatened me a few moments before. "Shit, _this_ kid!? Still alive, eh, boy? Where's that bitch mother of yours run off to this time?"

My brain stops ticking. I don't feel the pain any more, all I can do is listen to what's being said.

Clearly angry, Levi jerks his head so hard and fast that the man has no choice but to release it for a second. "Fuck you!" he snarls at the thugs.

A few of them burst out laughing, as if Levi made the funniest joke in the history of the world. I see his face darken dramatically as they go on rolling. "_Fuck_ you?!" the obnoxious one chokes out through gulps of air in between cackles. "Like mother like son, I guess!"

"You don't have to steal from us, little boy," the big one is saying, pressing his lips into the side of Levi's head and dragging the knife across the front of him teasingly as he jeers, "we're fair men, we pay fair. Unlike _some_ people."

Something breaks in Levi's expression and I can't take it anymore. No fucking way I'm gonna lay here and watch Levi Heichou get treated like this! Homeless or not, he's worth helping to me.

"Levi, now!" I scream, leaping up from the ground and barreling my way through the throng of men. I hope that their split second of confusion at my being able to move still will be enough time for us to do something. Catching on, Levi writhes like an insane person, doing everything he can think of to slip from the giant's grasp. It doesn't matter, though. I'm there in a second, yanking the knife from his hand, blade first. I don't stop for a second to think about the fact that I've just sliced deeply into my hand. All I think about is stopping them. Doing _anything_ to stop these bastards from treating Levi like this.

I don't even think about it. The blade sinks into the giant's thigh on its own accord. He shrieks in pain as I yank it out again, and Levi drops to his feet, free. I'm slashing everywhere and I can see Levi fighting too, with just his bare hands as weapons.

"Come on!" he's snapping at me, disbelief clearly evident in his voice. I look around frantically, still caught up in blind rage. I see him looking to me, big grey eyes urging me to follow him.

_No, _I think, _I have to make them pay for this…_

"Eren!" he shouts, and the sound of his voice—so familiarly commanding—yanks me out of the trance long enough to notice that all of the men are laying on the ground, already immobilized.

A great shudder runs through my body. _Holy shit…_I hear him calling my name again, but he sounds far away. He is grabbing my sleeve and pulling me away from the scene. I can hear my heart beating in my ears.

A crate is shoved into my arms and another one is behind me, held by Levi, prodding me along. "Let's go, let's go, come on!" he's hissing, pushing me through the back passageway. It's not until we're all the way back to his sleeping place that I notice all of the blood.


	4. Chapter 4

As soon as we're back into the alcove where we slept, Levi shoves me down with an exasperated grunt. "Are you completely stupid?!" he half-yells at me. I'm clutching my right hand with my left, finally realizing that that the sharp, stinging pain is from a deep gash running across my palm from grabbing the blade. He has turned away and pushed the crates of food into the corner, as if trying to hide them behind the rotting trunk. He doesn't really sound angry. He's shocked and I think I even hear some fear in his voice as he goes on, "Are you seriously insane?"

"Hey, I just saved your life!" I argue, wincing at the applied pressure on my hand. The cut is deepest on my palm but my fingers have been wounded as well. I'm staring down at the wound so I don't notice him hurrying toward me, and a second later I land flat on my back—Levi on top of me.

"What the—?!" I squeak out, but he slaps his tiny hand over my mouth and bends to hiss directly in my ear.

"_Shut. The Fuck. Up_."

My heart is leaping wildly in my chest, any recovery that it may have had since the events of a few moments ago is now lost, completely unnerved by Levi's attack. I stare up at him through wide eyes, frightened and in pain. My whole body hurts terribly and the gash on my hand is burning enough to bring tears to my eyes.

His body is pressed so tightly against mine that I can feel just how skinny he actually is. His left hip bone is digging painfully into one of the already tenderized areas of my abdomen. I feel the first tears start to threaten escape and I mumble something into his hand.

"Shh," he says, much softer now that I'm being quiet. He is not looking at me, his neck is arched up a bit, looking out over a pile of trash near us. I don't want to cry, even though I can't possibly be faulted for it after the beating I just took, but still, my pride is getting the better of me. As I struggle to slow down my ragged breathing, I notice the way that Levi's own stomach is shuddering against mine. It's erratic and wild—just slightly out of his control.

_He's terrified,_ I realize, eyes widening even farther. Now that I'm looking, I can even see his neck pulsating slightly as the blood beats furiously through his veins. _I've never seen him scared like this before…_

He slides off of me and flattens onto the ground on my left side so close that his shoulder pressed into the dirt is nudged up against mine. "Are you alright? Shit, what's wrong with you?" he whispers, and he's close enough that the breath makes a few strands of my hair move.

I'm in pain everywhere, but my hand seems to be the most immediate concern since it's bleeding a lot. I raise it up to show him but he grabs my wrist and shoves it back down onto my stomach. "Stay down, damn it," he orders over my hiss of pain. "They're probably after us."

Oh so that's it. He thinks we've been followed. He thinks that they're mad and they'll kill us, now. I turn my gaze on him again and confirm that to be true. He's even paler than before and his eyes keep darting around nervously.

"Do they know you live here?" I ask quietly.

"I don't _live_ here," he hisses back, a little hurt seeping through the tone of fear.

"It seemed like they knew you."

And that makes him snap his silvery eyes onto mine, an angry glint replacing the scared one. "They don't fucking know me."

"They recognized you, didn't they?"

He makes and angry little noise and cranes his neck up to peer over the trash pile. When he lays down again he's on his back, staring up at the sky. His shoulder presses firmly against mine, now. I think I've made him more upset than he already was and a cold feeling of guilt pools in my stomach. I try to think of something comforting to say.

"I don't think they would have been able to follow us. I think I cut them pretty good."

"Tch. I think you killed the big guy."

"Just him?"

His head flops to face right and he rolls his eyes at me. "You're fucking nuts, you know that?"

I frown a little, although I'm not upset, and barely whisper, "You're welcome."

The blood from where he'd shoved my hand against my stomach has seeped through my shirt. It makes the skin underneath feel uncomfortably sticky and warm. I pick it up a little—though not enough to bother him—and examine it, opening and closing it before my eyes, watching the blood drip down. It's bleeding much less now than it was before. Surprisingly less. And the wounds look surprisingly smaller, too.

"You got a concussion?"

I look away from my hand and see that Levi is talking to me again. "I don't think so."

"Where'd they get you?"

I let out a low chuckle because it's such a ridiculous question. "Um, everywhere?"

"Shit." And then, a long time later, "Sorry."

"It's ok," I say, not really listening to him. I'm much too interested in the way that my hand has practically stopped bleeding and is closing up all around the edges—not scabbing, just closing up again with normal flesh.

Although I am mesmerized by it, Levi must not be paying any attention to my cuts at all, because he asks me, "Do you need a rag for it or something? To stop the bleeding? There's shit all over the place, you don't want an infection, trust me."

When I fail to answer him, he makes that annoyed sound again and rolls back up onto his right shoulder. "Eren?"

"Look."

He gives my hand an impatient look and snaps, "What?"

"Just keep looking."

The bleeding has completely stopped now and the cuts are only visible in the middle where they were sliced deepest. Bit by bit, cell by cell, we watch the new, pinkish flesh weave its way back into normalcy. I can feel him growing tenser beside me and I hear the way his breath hitches in his throat when he realizes what's happening.

"Holy…" he can't even finish, he's too shocked. I meet his eyes again and find him wide eyed, mouth agape. Is it horror or shock that I see in his expression? Maybe both. "What….the hell is wrong with you?" he stammers, still staring at my hand like he's in a trance.

I'm surprised by this, certainly, but not shocked like he is. Even though my heart is beating quickly with the excitement of this discovery, my brain is surprisingly calm, as if I already knew that this would happen somehow.

Levi drags quivering eyes away from my hand when it's done healing and brings his huge silver orbs to rest on my face. I can see it clearly in his expression when something new dawns on him. "Your nose…was broken yesterday, wasn't it?"

I try to think back to then. It feels like a long time ago.

"Did you set it?" I shake my head slightly. "Oh my god! You really are a fucking freak!" he cries a little too loudly considering our situation.

If it were anyone else saying that, I'm sure I would be very offended, but I'm used to Heichou saying things very negatively when he actually means them in a neutral way, so I'm un-phased. All of the blood that has stained my clothes and dripped down my arm doesn't seem scary any more. Now it just looks silly, almost like it was fake and never even threatening in the first place.

Levi is still trying to wrap his head around this. His jaw moves in silence for a long time before he finally decides which words to spit out. "Does it hurt?"

"Not anymore, really."

"How the hell—"

"I guess I've always been able to heal super fast," I say as if it's no big deal.

The tone of his next words and the look of genuine longing on his face makes it clear that this is, in fact, a _very_ big deal. "Eren, I would give _anything _to have that ability," he says with more emotion than I've heard from him since the plea for my help this morning.

I see jealously in his face—his face that's polka-dotted with so many bruises that they blend together, his swollen eyes beaming genuine desire for my ability—and I wish that I could somehow give my power to him, to help him heal. I would do it without a second thought. I would do anything if it would just make those marks go away and that miserable, shameless look of neediness leave his eyes. I don't want to see Heichou like this. I want to see him strong and proud and unchanging—the world's strongest soldier. My hero. I don't want to see the pale speckled face of a starving boy who wishes that he could be me instead of being himself.

I close my eyes to make him disappear for a moment. I want to make him into who he's supposed to be _right now_ so that the sick feeling in my stomach will go away. I just can't stand to see him like this. But before I can think about it much more, my stomach overrides the pity-nausea and gives a desperate growl.

"Can we eat the food?" I ask, hoping that we actually succeeded in getting food after all of that. What if Levi was wrong and there wasn't anything to eat in the crates that he'd grabbed?

"When it's darker," he says, finally slipping out of the trance that my healing abilities had put him in.

"It's always dark here," I practically whine.

"I don't want to risk it. What if they come by and see us?"

"We can fight them."

"No fucking way."

"They're injured."

"They're huge."

_You're Humanity's Strongest, dammit! And I'm…_ I want to yell at him to get his act together and be _Heichou _again, but I realize how unrealistic and unfair I'm being. Just because I have a different image of this kid in my head does not necessarily mean that that's who he is or who he will turn out to be. The thought of him _not_ becoming the Levi Heichou I know is almost unbearable, so I stop thinking and start talking again.

"I don't think they'll come this far, Levi."

"And if they do? Then we'd literally be backed into a corner."

That's true. If anyone did come for us here, the alcove's structure would make it almost impossible for us to escape. "Then why don't we leave? Go somewhere else?"

"We can't carry those crates around town, dumbass. Someone will notice." I almost suggest that we leave them behind but I quickly stop myself, realizing how stupid that would be. Still, he must have had a similar thought line because he goes on, saying, "And we can't leave them. I really need it."

I give a huge sigh and concede. "Fine. We'll just wait."

* * *

When the candles are almost all blown out and the darkness is overwhelming, we finally get up from the dirt and make our way over to where Levi hid the crates. He crawls all the way. I hope it's because he's still scared that they'll come and not because he's too weak to get up.

I break into them anyway, just in case he actually is almost out of strength. When's the last time he's eaten, I wonder? Days? A week? Yet his stomach hasn't made one single noise while mine is whining shamefully, like a noisy child.

It's mostly just shit food, like the military rations that I remember eating—as if in another life. While he greedily stuffs cold beans into his mouth, Levi explains that people can go to the 'Rations Station' to get one crate per month.

_One of these per month?_ It's too hard to believe. There's hardly anything more than a few cans of beans and dried, salted, shitty old ham in here with some unleavened, practically moldy bread.

"You gotta have a whole family, gotta have a mom or dad or some adult or something," he's telling me—surprisingly talkative while eating. A speck of chewed bean comes out of his mouth and he quickly scoops it up on his little finger and sticks it back in his mouth. "That's why I can't get any."

I can't help but stare while he's chomping away like this. Heichou would never talk with food in his mouth…I'm tempted to eat, but seeing how starving he actually is I can't get myself to eat more than a few bites.

"How…how long have you been out here?" I mutter, watching him push another bean into his already puffy cheeks.

"Alone?" he swallows a little so he can speak more clearly. "A couple months." He chews with great pomp and swallows a lot at once. This time, though, when his mouth is empty, he pauses for a moment. "My mom was around before. Sometimes." His voice is more serious now. When he digs into the salt crusted ham, he's lost some of that vigor.

"Where is she now?"

I want to smack myself in the face the second that the words are out of my mouth. _Geez, Eren, you're so stupid, _I yell at myself internally. The look on his face, the annoyance just barely failing to cover the wound…it does more than a slap in the face ever could to make me regret my big mouth. I have to do something because the silence is crushing, so I do what I do best…dig myself a deeper hole by not shutting up.

"My mom died," I say softly. I wait for him to ask what happened, but he doesn't. He just picks at the meat and pops little bits onto his tongue. I can feel my throat closing a little, getting scratchy as I make myself go on. _You hurt him, you know_, I think. _It's only fair that you bleed, too. _"She got eaten by a Titan. I saw…everything. And I couldn't do anything to stop it from happening."

He doesn't look at me like a normal person might do. Somehow that makes me exceedingly thankful. I don't want to say anymore, but I feel like I should. "And my dad's gone. I have no idea where he went. He just sort of _left _after my mom died and never came back."

His voice stops me.

"Yeah, mine's gone too."

Then he's eating again, filling his mouth until he can't talk at all, and I know that he does it on purpose. "Your dad?" I ask.

"My mom."

"What about your dad," I ask. He just shrugs.

I don't know why I ask, but I can't help it. I want to know. I've always wanted to know everything about him—ever since I was younger than he is now, watching the Survey Corp come through the streets. "Did she…die?"

He doesn't choke on his food or stutter in his chewing. He doesn't look any place other than the crate, which he's been staring at for the past five minutes. But his voice is small and strained, gritting out, "She was always gone a lot—working. Sometimes I'd be alone on the street and she would tell me to stay put and sometimes I would but sometimes I wouldn't and then we'd be separated and she would have to go searching for me afterward. And then…we used to have a house—for awhile—a couple years ago. And they would come there and she would put me in the closet, instead."

I don't even know what he's talking about but I'm hanging on every word, every syllable that he's willing to give me.

"It was a shit situation. I fucking hated every single _fucking _second sitting in there trying not to…" he fades from a hiss to a whisper, "…listen. But it was better when we had the house. That way at least we could always find each other. I never had to wonder."

My stomach starts sinking as I start to formulate a guess.

"Then somehow, I dunno, we got kicked out somehow and we were back out here and she kept getting shit customers and she would come back…" he can't explain, he just waves his hand slowly over his face and the bruises jump out like firecrackers. "Then one time she just…didn't come back for a long time. I had stayed _right there_, right where she told me to." His bottom lip raises a little bit and he half-shrugs, his shoulders tensing and then remaining that way. "So I went looking. I went to the usual people. No one knew anything." He pauses to swallow. "When I finally found her, she…" I see his face darken a bit as his head lowers and long black strands cover up his eyes. He shakes his head, a small fist balling up the material of his oversized pant leg. "She was gone. They killed her."

I can't imagine what my face looks like. I can't even breathe. The words of the men from earlier today, the things I've seen from being with Levi for the past day…I can finally begin to piece it all together. I can't breathe. All I can do is stare at Levi's small form, crouched before the crate. I'm almost positive that my lungs have collapsed when he suddenly pops his head up and looks right at me, a manic, wry look twisting his expression into something horrifying.

"And you know what they said to me? When I got there? When I confronted them?" He glared into my eyes, a wrinkle in his mouth, frozen, waiting to go on. I _know _that my lungs have collapsed when I realize that he's waiting for me to say something.

I can barely choke out the whisper, "What?"

"When I confronted those bastards for murdering her, you know what they did?" He leans in closer and growls out almost sarcastically, "They gave me the money they owed her. Slapped it right in my hand and ruffled my hair and told me that I could come back when I run out, they'd find _work _for me."

I'm paler than he is and I'm shivering slightly. No matter how hard I try, I can't pull my eyes away from that miserable grey glare. _Oh my god,_ I think over and over again. _Levi…_

"Um…"

He snaps his head away from me as fast as lighting and leaps up, brandishing the empty can of beans at whatever had made the little noise in the dark. A little squeak can be heard not far away, from the same place that the "um" came from. I'm shaking so hard that I can barely stand, but when I finally get to my feet and put a restraining hand on Levi's shoulder, the noise maker is stammering out,

"N—no please don't h—hurt me! I just want…I wanna…c—can I…"

I squeeze Levi's shoulder, realizing by the sound of the small voice that it must be a little girl talking to us. "Come here," I said shakily, "so we can see you." I feel Levi tense even more under my hand at my suggestion, but I don't take it back.

The small creature climbs over a fallen plank and into our field of vision. At the sight of her, even Levi's tense shoulder relaxes.

She's smaller than Levi is—maybe only four or five years old. Her hair is messy but we can tell that it was supposed to be in two pigtails on either side of her head, although it clearly hasn't been tended to in days. In the dark it looks brown, but it's different than my hair is, so I guess it's a reddish color. There's nothing on her body but a baggy white shirt, torn on one shoulder, only long enough to barely cover her bottom. Her legs are bare, revealing scraped up, scabby knees and bruised shin bones.

Suddenly, Levi ducks out from under my hand and stoops to kneel in front of the child. He reaches out a hand, not touching her, but rather allowing her to hesitate and look him over before deciding to reach back to him.

"You scared me, dumb brat," he says. His entire demeanor has changed. There is a softness in his voice, a tenderness that I have never heard from him before—in this life or another. I can't see his face but I imagine that he's smiling at her. "Are you hurt?"

She shakes her head very dramatically, like children do sometimes.

"What about these little knees, huh? They're all dirty."

She shakes her head again. "I smelled your food." Her chin tucks down against her childish chest and her face darkens with a guilty blush.

"Oh?" he asks, "You were spying?"

She nods ashamedly.

"Well…next time, if you're going to spy on bigger people, you have to have a better plan to get what you're after. No popping up asking for it. That's how the bad guys get you. Alright?" Her head bobs up and down, red pigtails shaking, and she meets his gaze again.

"So…can I have some?"

He chuckles lightly and it's such a pleasant sound that I almost forget about everything he just told me.

I wanted to know, didn't I? So why then—when he's smiling down at a little girl who must remind him very much of himself—why do I wish that I hadn't stayed here? And why—when he's piling cans of food in her arms that we just risked our lives to get—why do I wish that I'd never met this side of my hero?

By the time he sends her away with a pat on the head, I'm bent over, head on my knees, clutching my legs tightly against my chest.

"What's wrong with you?" he asks, back to his usual, biting self. I give a pathetic little sniffle. "Shit, Eren," he groans, coming to stand next to me. I can hear his feet come near and then stop only a few inches away from me. "Don't fucking cry about it, god. I don't anymore."

I keep my tears silent but they still won't stop flowing, and I can't bring myself to look up at him. He sighs softly and, to my surprise, he doesn't kick me or swear at me or anything like that. Instead he crouches down next to me. He puts his small hand on my shoulder, just like I did to him a few minutes ago.

"Eren," he says very quietly. I can feel his breath warm and soft against my sticky, sweaty temple. "Eren?"

_Oh dammit all, _I don't want to look at him but I can tell that he's waiting for me to do just that. Finally I force my head out of my knees and turn bleary eyes up to his face. I expect to find a sour, cold expression. But instead there is an infinitely wise, extremely caring glow practically emanating from his usually lifeless features, as if I'm the damaged one who needs his pity instead of the other way around. It takes my breath away.

"We're gonna be fine," is all he says. "Now don't be shy, dummy. Eat the food. You got your ass kicked for it, you're allowed to have some, alright?"


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Text

I keep trying to tell him that I don't need to eat that much. Knowing what I know now, and seeing what I've seen, the last thing I want to do is eat his food.

"Just because you healed already doesn't mean it didn't hurt, right? So I owe you at least a little," he says, nudging my head with his knuckles. He's still standing over me and I'm still sniffling back tears. "Tch, Eren," he keeps muttering, "you're pathetic, eat something. I'm gonna make you do that again, so get used to sharing whatever we can get." When I still hesitate, he steps away with a sigh and I hear him threaten, "I'm not gonna _beg you_ to eat food, dumbass. I'll eat it all myself next time."

By now I know him well enough to assume that when he says _"I'm not going to beg you," _he actually is. So I eat some of the beans and a little of the bread, but I try to avoid the ham because it seems like the most substantial food in the rations.

After he feels that I ate enough to compensate for my beating, he tucks the remaining food from the first crate into the second one and hides it behind the old planks again. The fact that the remnants all fit in just one of the crates tells me that he gave that little girl a _ton_ of food. It annoys me a little. How could he give so much of it away when he clearly needs it so badly? After we risked our lives to get it? He didn't even know who she was.

But apparently he's not feeling the same way. Once we're curled up in between puddles of sewage for the night, he groans slightly.

"What's wrong?" I ask at once.

"Shi—it," he groans again. He's curled up tighter than he was last night and his arms are hugged tightly around himself.

_He's going to be sick,_ I think, noting the way his face his scrunches up slightly in the dark and his mouth works into a frustrated frown. He hadn't eaten in God knows how long and then he scarfed down a full meal in less than twenty minutes. I can remember—somewhere through the haze of the oil—being hungry and needy myself, scrounging around for food and hating charity of any kind. Eating a lot after eating nothing is never good for your stomach. Never.

But if cramps and nausea are the problem, I never know for sure, because he surprises me by saying, "I shouldn't have let her go."

"Huh?"

"The little girl."

"What do you mean, you shouldn't have let her go?"

"It's fucking dangerous out here!" he says emphatically, twisting his arms even more tightly around his tummy like a particularly painful cramp is running its course. "If she's alone…_shit_ she's like four."

True enough. A four year old girl running around the underground at night all alone was a recipe for disaster. Anyone could get to her. I think back to the state she had been in—the messy hair, the scraped up legs, the scarcity of her clothing…It seems likely that someone already has.

But saying something like that won't make Levi stop worrying about her. "Maybe she has a family and the helpless kid thing is all just an act. She could have taken all of that food straight back to her house," I suggest, not sure if this will make him angry with me or angry with her and therefore less remorseful about sending her out on her own again.

He doesn't take a long time to answer like he sometimes does. "I thought maybe. But on that chance that she's out here with no one…" He grits his teeth through another cramp. "I just…"

_You just gave her like a sixth of our food, anyway. _

"You could have asked her if she had anyone to—"

"She wouldn't tell me. I wouldn't answer that," Levi interrupts, a reflective tone in his voice. Yes, he's definitely relating her to himself, I decide. That's not good. That's not the way to make him into the strong Levi that I want him to be. I have to get his mind back in the right place.

"It's not safe with us, anyway," I say matter-of-factly. "We have to leave this area. Isn't that what you were saying before? We have to find a new place to stay, right?"

He takes a moment to take this into account, and I'm hoping that in the silence he's losing whatever remorse he may have. I'm right. He knows—for once—that Eren Jaeger is right and he's thinking all wrong.

He sighs. It's such a thin, little sigh. "You're right, Eren. We need to go."

"Have anywhere in mind?"

"Not really. But this crate is a problem. Can't leave it. Can't bring it."

My brows furrow without my realizing it. "Why can't we carry it, again?"

Another cramp tears through him and he's in the fetal position gritting out the words through his teeth. I'm a little glad that it happens just now. This way he can't glare at me like I'm an idiot while he shoves horrible truths down my throat. "_Because_…we're two kids with _nothing_. You know how it goes. When you're already down you're in the perfect position to get kicked around. Everybody does it." He scrunches up his face a little more now. In pain or in shame, I don't know. "Even me. I would have ripped your fucking _hair_ out of your head, Eren. We wouldn't get around the corner with that crate of food. We wouldn't get five steps. We'd get mugged. Or killed. Or worse."

_Or worse…_

Not thinking about that. "What if…" I trail off, thinking at a thousand miles per hour. It's too easy and obvious when it finally comes to me. "What if we just hide all the left-over food in our clothes? I bet I could tie a ton of it up in this cloak," I say, pulling the worn, green cloak over my legs. "It wouldn't be so obvious that way."

"Still obvious," he frowns, "but better."

"It's really annoying that all my stuff is gone." The cramps have given him a moment's break, so his big silver eyes come flashing up at me again, a question in them. "My clothes. My gear," I explain. "I had 3D Maneuver Gear on me when I….passed out."

The big eyes get even bigger. "Maneuver Gear? Holy shit."

"If I had that—"

"Who the hell _are _you?"

"We could use it to get around really fast."

"Tch. Like that wouldn't draw even _more_ attention to us, idiot." He rolls over so that I can't see his face anymore. Instead I see the vertebrae in his neck practically poking through his skin and the dirt in his mussed hair.

"No one would be able to keep up with us to follow us, Levi," I assure him softly, almost a whisper. And that'll be then end of it. I roll over too, signaling my submission, letting it go, letting us sleep. Letting him writhe in peace. I wonder if I'm as annoying to him in this life as I am later on. Does he hate me? I helped him, so I think that he at least appreciates me a little, and that makes me happy. Levi Heichou would have no reason to appreciate a shitty brat like me in our normal lives. I'm just a burden to him, there. But _here_—here I'm a help to him and he might actually need me a little.

I push all of the horrible things that I've seen and heard today aside and try to think on that instead as I try to fall asleep.

* * *

_It's cold and I'm underwater, floating below a surface, and the sound of things above echo all around me, each murmur like a cold caress scratching my skin raw. I'm in a house the size of my kitchen. The form of a man wiggles in the water, black as the depths of the oily sea. And a woman is saying, "It's one hundred."_

_The form of the man squirms when it talks, "For a filthy whore like you? You're crazy."_

_Stiffer and desperate the invisible woman comes again, "It's…one hundred." _

_There is a muffled shriek—loud and forceful in the heavy water, and it moves me—then the sound of a strike. The bed crumbles under weight and the moving water matches the shifting. "Twenty five."_

_"It's one—"_

_"There's a goddamn kid in here!" _

_An exasperated, "Levi! What did I tell you?" _

_"Levi, get back in the closet or so help me…"_

_Bitten down fingernails too short to cut his cheeks when she grabs his face. "Shut up, Levi."_

_"How many times does mommy have to tell you to sit nicely? They don't like it when they know you're here." _

_"Whatever, I don't give a rat's ass about a little shit like him. It's twenty five or nothing. Hmm?" _

_She sniffles. Little feet don't move the water. "Get out of here, Levi. Please."_

_"Oi, shitty brat," says the form of the man after a long stillness. "Listen to your mother." And then a pause, it raises a hand to contemplate and the little feet don't move back toward the closet that can hardly be called a closet at all. More like a plank leaned up against the wall in the corner, made shiny by the film of black waves. "I'll give you fifty if the brat stays. How about that?"_

_"No, no, no," says the woman. "No. Never." Her fear tells me that the closet isn't good enough this time. "Get out of here, baby. Come back later tonight, okay?" _

_No words, but the little feet stagger toward the door and slip past the form of the man, whose hand brushes over him as he goes, black as sin. _

_The form of the man, the voice of the woman, and the little feet are all lost in the tide and I'm being swept out to sea. The water changes around me, but no matter what it is always cold. The words float by on every side, too fast to fully register. _

_"Are you okay, mommy?"_

_"I'm hungry."_

_"Let me do it. Let me help. You know I can help you."_

_"No. Never. Never, ever, Levi. I mean it. Promise me." _

_"You know he's worth ten times your skank ass, don't you? I'm about tired of what little you manage to bring me. That house is for my best girl. Not washed-up sluts with useless kids," a tall man tells her as they float by my left side. _

_"Please…he's…too young to be on the street again."_

_"I don't give a shit about that kid unless he works for me."_

_I get caught in a whirlpool. The oil is everywhere, seeping into me, claiming every pore. Let me go, let me help them, please… _

_Tiny knees scraping bloody in the dirt and on the cobblestone, heels of hands too small to hold things yet, already speckled with the indentation of stones and shards of glass. Clothes that don't cover his body. The woman is holding his head, crying, her nose dripping freely into his hair. "Why, baby? Why? You promised me."_

_"I didn't want to, mom," he says. And his voice is cold for the very first time. "I didn't mean to." _

_She's enraged, she's swearing through gritted teeth. "How could you do that to him, Kenny? Why the hell would you do something like that? I specifically said…God! You could be his father for all I know."_

_I'm drowning. _

I wake with a gasp, arms flailing frantically. My chest heaves in and out wildly and my eyes dart around. Where is he? I half expect to see him looking like he had underwater—so, so small and vulnerable—but no, I find him sitting on his knees exactly where he'd fallen asleep.

"What was it?" His voice is quiet and intrigued.

Once I have my breath under control I shakily say, "Just a nightmare."

"Tch. You're too old to cry in your sleep, don't you think?" He doesn't give me a chance to respond or to even react to his jab. I've barely even raised a hand to ashamedly wipe my face before he goes on, waving at the pile of things in between us, saying, "Here. Got your stuff back."

My mouth falls open in surprise. There, neatly folded between the two of us, is a pile of all of my things that had been stolen. My pants, my jacket, my Survey Corp cloak, my boots, and most importantly the 3DMG. My original shirt is missing but I barely even notice. I'm far too shocked to be seeing this stuff again.

"When did you—?"

He rolls his eyes like it's a stupid question. Levi rises to his feet and flicks his hand at me impatiently. "No sign of those guys yet, but I'm sure they're looking for us. Hurry up and put this stuff on over your other clothes."

I shrug off the cloak he gave to me and hold it out to him. He eyes it warily. "I don't need two," I assure him.

"I found your wallet, too." That look of slightly embarrassed guilt is back on his pale face. "But I'm keeping the money."

I force a little chuckle. "That's fine, Levi." Then he quickly takes the cloak and ties it around his shoulders. The Survey Corp pants are too tight to slip on over the ones I'm wearing, so I take them off as quickly as possible and squeeze into my now less white military pants. I hope that he's not staring at me this time.

The jacket shrugs on easily, familiar and warm. _I wonder who was wearing this yesterday. _Now for the 3DMG. As soon as I crouch to pick the belts up, Levi takes a step toward me. I glance down at him while my fingers tug at the different straps. The unmistakable look of childlike interest is shining off of his face—albeit veiled a little. A little smile plays on the corner of my lips when he asks, "How does it work?"

Levi Heichou asking _me_ how 3DMG works. I shake my head to myself in awe. "Gotta strap it on like this," I explain, putting it all on very slowly like my teacher in boot camp had done for me. The belts are complicated and most cadets need several lessons before they can get it on right. But Levi is watching intently, his grey eyes gleaming with interest and focus, and I know that I wouldn't have to explain it to _him _again. "And then," as the last of the buckles snaps into place and I pull the tongue of leather tight, "the gear goes on like this."

"You're an MP?"

This takes me a little by surprise but not enough to look up from adjusting the gas tanks. I'm happy that whoever stole them didn't know enough about it to damage or empty them. "No. I'm in the Survey Corp."

"The hell is _that_?"

"What!?" I jump a little, thinking that he saw something scary. But no…

"What's the Survey Corp?"

I'm at a loss for words for a moment, blinking at him like I'm seeing him for the first time. "Um…Survey Corp is the guys who go outside the walls and fight Titans."

"Tch." He folds thin arms over his chest. "That sound really stupid."

"It's important!" I gasp out. I can't believe I'm hearing the words I've heard from so many other closed-minded people coming out of Levi's mouth. "We take back lost territory and—"

"You've never been outside the walls."

"What?"

"Have you?"

I'm hesitant to admit it. The way he's looking me over with those calculating eyes makes me feel like I've just strapped myself into a costume instead of a uniform. "No, not yet," I say a little bitterly, looking down to hide my blushing frown.

"What's Survey Corp doing with kids like you anyway?" And again, before I can even answer the first question, "What are you doing in the fucking _underground,_ huh? When you could be up there?" He points up. _Up_.

And it hits me just like the black waves in the dream—that nightmare. He's exactly the same as me. I just wanted to get _out_. All Levi wants is to be up there, out of this pit, up in the light. Free.

I have no answers for him about why I'm here or why anyone wants me around when no one wants him—_yet_, I have to remind myself, _no one wants him yet, but they will. _

I give him a big shrug. "I dunno, I hit my head, remember? Let's pack up the food and whatever else you've got and then we can get out of here."

There's nothing else, just the food. A lot of it slips into my boots. Beans get smooshed by my calves and I keep apologizing. "Like I care," Levi says coldly. The ham is more difficult. We end up tying it up with the leftover bread in Levi's cloak and he clutches it between folded arms.

When it's all tucked away, we stand facing each other. It's awkward—him glaring at me with that cold intensity, apparently waiting for me to say something, while I still expect him to give me an order. Finally he half rolls his eyes, saying, "And you really know how to use that stuff?"

"Yeah."

"What does it…feel like?"

The smile inches over my mouth again. Sometimes he's just adorable. I silently pray that Big Levi will never ever _ever_ know how I had to hold back giggles at how cute he is. "What does what feel like?" I tease.

"Flying, dumbass."

"It's windy." He punches my arm. "No seriously! But it'll feel different for you than it does for me."

Annoyed, "Why?"

"Well, because there's only one set of gear. I'm going to have to carry you."

When his face reddens with a mortified fury, small soft lips pinching together into an angry line and brows furrowing, I just can't help it. The giggle escapes.


	6. Chapter 6

As we fly through the underground city—my 3DMG sending little spurts of dirt and dust flying as the hooks dig into the rocky ceiling, turning heads on every corner—I'm once again having a hard time believing that Levi is fifteen like he says he is. He's _so _light.

I'm not the best at maneuvering with the gear yet, so I can't carry him bridal style like I secretly want to. Instead he's on my back, his stick-like arms and legs wrapped over my shoulders and around my hips, holding on for dear life. He's stiff as a board, perhaps out of terror or maybe just out of embarrassment at being carried. Either way, his clinging is on the verge of overkill. His heels feel like dull little daggers digging into my abdomen and his arms are crossed over my chest so that his boney fingers are vice grips in my armpits.

He has to stay pretty high on my back to avoid getting in the way of the gas dispensing, so before long I think I feel his thighs start to quiver around me. "You alright back there?" I call to him as I send my left cable shooting around the corner. He doesn't answer but I feel the nub of his chin sinking into my collarbone.

It's hard to focus on finding a new place to stay when all I can think about is Levi Heichou's younger form clinging to my back like a flying squirrel. While I am totally enjoying this, the tension in Levi's body tells me that he is completely uncomfortable, so I put my mind to the task and resolve to find a suitable place as soon as possible.

As we go, the maze of the underground proves to be even more difficult than I'd imagined. Flying slightly above the buildings makes it a little easier to see where I'm going, but I still feel lost. It's actually quite large. The worn down shacks blend into progressively nicer areas—although none of them can actually be considered "nice" compared to the above ground standard. As we get deeper into what I think is the heart of the underground, I notice that there are many giant pillars of rock—either built up or carved out—to make sure that the ceiling holds.

"K—keep going," Levi squeaks in my left ear, his breath coming out in shaky puffy on my jawline. "All the way across town, as far away from them as we can get." I don't know where the thugs' hide out is. All I have as a point of reference is the shack next to the pawn shop where we fought them. Using that place as my magnetic south, I follow his orders as best as I can and head straight north.

Soon the buildings descend into shambles once more and the rock ceiling is becoming less and less stable. I'm nervous about the 3DMG causing rock fall. _We'd better land, _I think. I call back to Levi, warning him to brace for a landing. When he squeezes even tighter around me, I can't help but smile through my grimace of pain.

I try to land in an area with no people around, but when my feet touch down and the wires screech back into their containers, I see an old man sitting in an alleyway staring at us. At least, I _think_ he's staring at us. His grey eyebrows are so big and bushy that they cover his eyes almost all the way. I watch him for a moment but he never moves.

Behind me, Levi immediately scrambles to get off of my back and take a few stumbling steps away from me. His feet are louder than usual on the cobblestone. I turn around and flash him a cocky little smirk. "Enjoy the ride?"

He scowls and turns on heel, stalking away, assuming that I'll follow him—I'm sure. And I do. He's walking off to the very outskirts of the underground, probably searching for a place to camp out. I notice that his steps aren't as straight and sure as they usually are.

"Are you gonna be sick?" I half-giggle.

No reply.

"It's ok, Levi. A lot of people get nauseous the first time they fly. Don't be embarrassed."

"Can you shut up?" he snaps, and I have to choke down another chuckle.

We walk for what feels like a long time, weaving in and out of alleys and side streets, searching for someplace that can meet his standards. The last 'camp site'—that's what he insists we call it, a camp site, not a 'house' or 'home' or 'place to live'—seemed like a dump to me, but apparently it was very well suited for him. The alcove layout offered a lot of protection from prying eyes and the maze of trash and sewage discouraged anyone from wandering inside. All of the spots we have passed since landing here are either too open, to inviting, or already occupied, so we keep on walking and walking and walking…

One nice thing is that no one is bothering us. Perhaps people in this area are less confrontational? _Don't be an idiot, Eren,_ I can almost hear Levi say in my head in response to the thought. It's probably because of my uniform that people seem to be leaving us alone.

Suddenly Levi hesitates right on the edge of the city and I almost walk straight into his back. "Hey—" I complain, almost falling over from slamming on the brakes like that. "What…?" But when I look up and see what he's staring at, I immediately understand.

There is a faint glow in the distance, only barely visible from here. It shines through the cracks in the wall of rock that signifies the edge of the underground city limits. The light isn't warm and flickering like the candles that have lit my past few days. No, this is bright and steady.

He takes off without a word, bolting toward the rock face. "Levi!" I gasp, hurrying after him, but he's already there, feeling around the boulders, following fault lines—trying to find his way around the barrier. Trying to get to the light.

In his rush, Levi is actually careless for once. He had dropped the bundle of bread and left over ham when he ran to the rock face, so now I stoop to pick it up before following him.

"There has to be, there has to be," I find him muttering to himself when I finally reach him. His thin fingers are poking in between the cracks, shamelessly searching for weaknesses to exploit. He seems almost more desperate to get past these rocks and into the light than he did to get the crates of food.

I have one free hand and I use it to help. Before long, I hear one of the outer boulders groaning as he drags it back and more of the clean light comes pouring out from the new hole. "Eren!" he practically yelps, turning wide eyes on me, all thoughts of embarrassment and nausea long forgotten. His tiny body is under tremendous strain as he yanks at the big rock, but somehow he's moving it.

My lips move to form words that I haven't chosen yet, but I stop dead in my tracks when he pulls the rock out a bit farther and starts worming his body through the hole. His stomach caves in to arch over the boulder and his head dips down low. Panic sparks up in my chest when his legs shoot up, sticking up in the air and waving around as his upper body disappears.

"It could cave in!" I warn, trying to keep my voice low so as not to attract attention. _What the hell is he doing? _But he ignores me and then in a flash his body falls forward like going down a slide headfirst and he's gone. "Levi!"

I rush to the hole and stick my head through, he heart leaping through my chest as the spark of panic roars into a flame. I half expect to find him twenty feet down, broken on rocks, having fallen and died without a single shout or cry…nothing. So when I see him sitting on his feet almost directly in front of me, the shaky exhale comes out with a curse. "_Fuck_, Levi! You scared the shit out of me."

"Hurry up and get in here," he says quietly, not evening bothering to offer an apologetic glance in my direction.

I try to squeeze in the same way he did. I try multiple times, actually, but my shoulders keep getting stuck. I end up having to pull the boulder out _much_ farther and remove my 3DMG before I can fit through the gap. When I finally fall in beside him—pulling my left leg through and tumbling up against him—he doesn't scold me for bumping into him. He doesn't even move away. He just sits there with me on my butt, pressed up against his side, his eyes relaxed but wide, his lips parted, staring up into the gaping hole in the rock ceiling where the light from above is pouring into the cavern.

"Wow," I say, mildly impressed by the view. We're inside of a rather large cavern littered with rock formations jutting up and down and all around from the walls. The hole in the cave ceiling leads up to the surface and below it is a small pond that must have formed from rain coming in. It's a lovely little pond, clear and sparkling due to the clean rock bottom.

I may be pleasantly surprised by this unexpected discovery, but Levi is like a kid on Christmas. I watch him look around and see how he has almost stopped trying to hide his bubbling joy. I don't know if it's just my imagination or not, but I think I can feel his heart beating. A faint little smile plays on his parted lips as he takes it all in. He's glowing, and I realize that in this moment—this moment that somehow_ I_ am getting to witness—this is probably the first time Levi has seen anything truly beautiful.

I am so lost in him—in how young and happy and beautiful he is in this moment—that I don't notice the wheels turning in his head and I am caught off guard when he speaks suddenly.

"Let's get some rocks to plug that hole up."

At first I think he's talking about the hole in the ceiling that he's been staring at for the past five minutes—the one letting in all of that light that he's craved so badly—but once I snap out of my trance I realize that he means the hole we made when we moved the boulder to get in here.

He gets up from the cave floor, the warm feeling of his tiny body leaving mine, and I follow suit, disappointed. I move to make a step in the direction of some smaller rocks we can use to plug the hole, but Levi reaches out a hand and stops me. His fingers curl gently in the fabric of my left sleeve and I slowly turn back to meet his big silver gaze.

"Take your shoes off."

"Huh?" I'm totally dumbfounded.

"This is the nicest fucking place I've ever been in in my life. Take your shoes off before you go mucking it up already."

_Well…that's Heichou for you, _I think as I stoop to remove my boots with a heavy sigh.

We pick through the cave, both of us barefoot, gathering rocks that could be the right size and shape to wedge in the new cracks. Eventually we choose three that fit like puzzle pieces to seal the cave up again. "To get out, just move them," Levi instructs, slipping the last rock into place. It long and narrow, sitting in the top of the crack at a diagonal. "And put them back before you leave. I don't wanna come back and find anybody else in here."

Satisfied by our now totally secure, totally private new camp site, Levi goes to inspect the water next. He tiptoes around the edge of the glistening pond as if he's never seen something like this before…and I guess he probably never has. I walk over to him slowly, watching as he crouches down and goes to dip a hand in the water. But then he stops, looks at his hand, and brushes it off on the inside of his shirt. By now I'm standing right behind him and either he lets me stay there or he doesn't notice. He just drops curious fingers onto the surface.

His fingertips set off a chain reaction and little circles grow and stretch in the water until they reach all the way to the other edge.

My eyes widen, staring at the ripple effect that he has and all the thoughts I have been formulating for the past few days finally come together, screaming into my mind. _This kid is going to change the world. I'll make sure of that. I'll force him to become Heichou. _

"Holy shit," he's muttering, scooping water up in his hands and slurping it down. "This is the best water _ever_."

* * *

The cave is about thirty feet in diameter and before long we've explored every inch of it. We find bugs hidden in the rock formations and Levi eats some of them, grimacing slightly and telling me to fuck off if I even try to say anything about it. Eventually I ask him to let me eat one of the particularly gross looking spiders that we stumble upon—because if he's eating bugs then who am I not to? If they're good enough for him then they're certainly good enough for me.

Once we've ridded the place of anything that could potentially pop out and scare us in the night, Levi finds a shady area along the cave wall and curls up like an exhausted kitten.

"Tired?" I ask.

"I was up all night finding your stuff. What do you think?"

"How did you find them, anyway?" I have to ask. After all, I don't even know who it was that took my things in the first place.

"I know who works what areas over there," he scoffs through a sleepy yawn. "It wasn't hard to narrow down the suspects." I plop down a few feet away and amuse myself by picturing little Levi playing enforcer, running around all night when I was sleeping, brow beating other kids into giving my things back.

Before long I hear his breathing grow soft and metered. Asleep.

I sit there for awhile, watching him rest, but I'm fifteen and soon I'm too self-conscious to watch him any longer and too bored to sit still. _He might know all about that other area, but this is a totally new place for both of us. I could go out and scout the area, bring back some valuable information. Yeah, that's a great idea. It's definitely time for some Survey action._

I sneak out of the cave as silently as I possibly can, removing my gear so that it won't scrape on the rocks and then pulling it out after me piece by piece to redress. And then I replace the three rocks, each in its place to plug the hole again and keep him hidden until I return.

This side of town isn't quite as run down as the other end is—or at least, the structures are better. Things aren't crumbled or rotting and falling down all over the place like before. Most of the buildings are made of old brick and mortar. This makes it harder to see around corners and through cracks.

I almost run into a man in a black cloak, but he pays absolutely no attention to me or my muttered apology. I hurry away from him and deeper into this end of the city. There's more people here, definitely. Men, women, children, old people, beggars, shop keepers…everyone. Lots of people everywhere the deeper I go. And they all look to be on some level of 'poor.' Although a few men stand out to me as suspicious and I try to walk extra far around them.

It's in between two main roads in a wide alleyway where I walk into them all.

There's seven or eight of them—boys about my age, some a few years older—all hanging around in this wide connecting street. All turning their heads and raising eyebrows at me as I stumble into their midst, and all I can think is _oh shit._

All of them are dressed half in rags and half in normal—almost expensive—looking clothes, at least in comparison to everything else I'm seeing. And here I am in Survey Corp clothes with 3DMG strapped on my hips. The few moments of assessing silence could not be any more awkward.

"What the fuck are you supposed to be?" is the first thing anyone says to me. I pin the question to the tallest of the boys, a brunette who takes a sloppy step in my direction. There's a black ribbon tied around the collar of his shirt.

"Excuse me," I say, fighting to keep the annoyance that I feel from showing in my tone of voice. "I'm just going to that other road."

"I asked you a question, you little bitch."

My brows furrow angrily and I glare at him. His smug expression is very frustrating. "I'm a soldier," I growl, "let me pass." Hey, it seemed to keep people away from us before, maybe it'll work again, now.

But it doesn't. "You're a fuckin' brat, they don't let kids in the fuckin' army."

"I _am_ in the Survey Corp. So…stand down." He just laughs at me and the other boys join him. Now I'm getting mad. "You need to let me through, _right now_."

The tall one takes a step closer and two of the others get up from the boxes their sitting on. Feeling threatened, my hands instinctively fall on the blade grips on my sides. "Woah there," he says and then there's a click and I look up to find the round, cold glint of a gun in my face.

Instantly my heart starts chugging and I scrunch up my face, absolutely furious. My teeth grind so hard that I'm sure they can hear it.

"Relax, pal. I'm not gonna fuckin' kill you," says the tall one, no longer laughing but still smug as shit. "Let's have a little talk, huh?"


	7. Chapter 7

I'm positively seething with rage by the time they've sat me down on one of the crates in the wide alleyway and have gathered around me with such nonchalant body language that they must not suspect that I'm planning to beat the hell out of them at any moment.

Or at least, I_ really_ want to. If I had that pocket knife I could easily take them, but I left it back at the cave with Levi just in case anyone finds him there while I'm gone. My 3DMG blades are way too big and obvious for a sneak attack. If I even try to use them, the tall boy will have a bullet through my head before I know what's happening.

_If only Levi was here,_ I think, _we could easily take these clowns together. _

But then again, that _gun_…

_How the hell did a shitty kid like this get a gun, anyway? _I wonder bitterly, glaring up at them from under my brows. The leader has the audacity to smile at me.

"Relaxed, now?" he asks lightly. I sort of try to talk but all that comes out is a livid growling noise. "Tch. Look, pal, if you cooperate we're gonna be nice. If you wanna be a little shit, we'll fuckin' treat you like it. So, how about it? Gonna be a good boy?"

"Like hell!"

Words still on my lips, he bangs the gun into my face and then lowers it dangerously. I'm still seeing red when I hear a low whistle. I glance up in pain and see that a second boy—slightly shorter than the leader—a blonde, has made the whistling sound and has stepped up to join the other before me. I follow their gaze and notice for the first time that the gun is now aimed right in between my legs.

My heart jumps up into my throat and I'm ready to kill them all. _Fucking assholes! What do they think they're doing?! I'm a member of the Survey Corp! They're gonna pay for this, so help me…_

"Come on, Sammy, be nice," the blonde is saying, distracting me away from my rage mantra. "That's no way to treat a service man."

"He's not a fuckin' service man, Farlan. Don't be an idiot. He's a little kid."

"You're as old as me," I grit out through clenched teeth, my gaze flicking back and forth between the two of them. The blonde one looks smart, like he knows how to say just the right things at just the right time. For once, my head is clear enough to think properly even through my anger, and I can bet that he's not actually on my side. This is just their good-cop, bad-cop routine.

"But he_ does_ have the uniform," argues the blonde. He talks with his hands.

"He _stole_ it!" The tall one practically shouts, taking a jerking step toward me so that the muzzle of the gun hovers only a foot away from my private parts. "Now…you listen real careful," he tells me. "I can tell that you're new around here, so—"

"I told you, I'm a member of the Survey Corp. I'm not from around here at all and you'd better not interfere with my mission!"

"Oh, just shut up, will ya?" he drawls, rolling his eyes. When Levi does it it's acceptable, but when he does it I want to turn that gun around on him and blow his damn eyes right out of his head.

"Well if he's not from here and he's not planning on sticking around then there's no need to start any trouble," the blonde mediates.

"This is _our_ territory. Just because some delusional little shit comes down here pretending he's a soldier doesn't make it no big deal."

_That's it._ I'm done sitting here listening to them belittle both me and the Corp. I pop up from the box and then drop to the ground before he has a chance to fire—partially betting on the fact that he won't really do it anyway.

I take his legs out with my body as I tumble past him and he lands half on top of me. I had dared to hope that the gun would scatter out of his hand on impact, but there's no such luck. Before I can get more than a few tumbling paces I'm taken down by the lot of them.

_I can take them! I'll teach all of these assholes a thing or two about messing with the Survey Corp! _I think as I swing like a maniac. But as knees, heels, and hands all connect with stinging blows, I am forced to remember. _Oh yeah…that was Mikasa who was always the good fighter. That was Levi. Never really me._

Next thing I know, my back is dragged up against one of their knees so that I'm sitting on the ground, my head is held up by my mop of hair and I can hardly see through the blood that drips down my brow and clings to my eyelashes. And there's that gun again, right in my face, the tall boy crouching behind it and the blonde hovering behind him.

"Come on, Sammy. I don't think Kenny is gonna be happy when he hears we beat up a Survey Corp guy."

"Are you kidding?! He'll be thrilled!"

I spit blood at him because that's about all that I can think of to do at the moments. It earns me another punch to the face and soon I'm hacking up bloody phlegm.

"Alright that's enough." The blonde pushes past the tall one and stoops to look me in the eye. "He's had enough," he says, which makes me chuckle internally.

_Oh really? Let's get rid of that gun and we'll see about that._

"Now, look. He's going on his way. He's gonna leave this part of town and not cross you again, alright, Sammy?" the blonde continues, looking at me but speaking to the leader. "You can tell Kenny that you taught him a lesson and sent him on his way. That should make him proud of you. Okay?"

"Don't look like he learned his lesson to me."

"He did. You did, didn't you?" The blonde looks to me imploringly, like he really wants me to agree with him so whole stupid mess can end.

_Not a chance,_ I think, but his big blue eyes and that stupid, floppy blonde mop remind me too much of a bigger, louder Armin and I _reluctantly_ cave. "Yeah…whatever." I still don't really know where the hell I am or how I got here. The only thing that matters right now is Levi. Not these stupid kids.

"What?" the tall one snaps.

"_Yes_, ok?" _Ugh. Dammit all!_

The brunette is looking me over like I'm a specimen under a microscope, his eyes all squinty, his lips turned down into a contemplative frown. "He won't believe me."

"What're you talking about?"

"Kenny'll never believe us if we tell him we held up a fuckin' Survey Corp guy—especially a little kid."

"We'll bring 'im in then," says another one of the boys, one who hasn't spoken before.

"No, no," chirps the blonde. He puts his hand on the tall one's upper arm. "There's no need for that." He pries the gun out of his hand and turns it back on me, something even _more_ sure in the way that he aims it at my head than the way the leader did it—as if this blonde is the_ real_ leader hiding behind a brain.

"Go on then," he's telling me. "Leave us those pretty boots and you can go on your way. Otherwise…" he lets his voice trail off menacingly and I hear the _click click_ of the gun.

I'm shivering angrily. I'd like nothing more than to jump up, knock that gun out of his hand, and wring his filthy neck. _Use your head, brat,_ it is adult Levi's voice in the back of my head. It's very hard for me to think logically, it's not in my nature. But something about this alternate world makes it easier for me to look beyond the immediate circumstances—the anger, the pain, the disrespect—and figure something smart out.

What would happen if I died? What would happen to Levi?

My fingers are quivering with contained rage but I work through the buckles and the boots come off. I hate to part with them and under any other circumstances I would never go along with this, but somehow I am able to do it. Somehow they're off and I'm handing them over and then the blonde is saying, "There you go, Sammy. Take those to him. He'll be thrilled."

My Survey Corp boots are passed up to the tall one and then they're kicking me out of the alley, telling me to get on my way.

* * *

By the time I'm back I get back to the cave, my feet are filthy and chewed to bits on shards of glass and other garbage. I pull the three big rocks out of the crevice and begin to take my 3DMG off in order to slip through.

_Levi's gonna be pissed if I track all this filth and blood into the cave,_ I think, so I take my time slipping in, trying to rub my feet off on the rocks, but it hurts like hell and each slight touch makes me cringe. _It'll heal soon,_ I encourage myself, noting that the cut from the boy's beating has already vanished. Still, I have to bite back little noises of pain with each swipe at the soles of my feet. _Do it for Levi. _

When I finally fall through the crack and into the cavern with a thud I'm well past the 'shivering' point. Now I'm practically quaking with pain and anger and concern, but before I can even pick my face up, I get nailed in the back of the head.

"Ow!" I shout, whipping around to face my attacker. I find Levi glaring at me through angry slits of eyes, his small fist hovering, telling me that it was him. "What the hell, Levi?!" I gasp as I rub my head tenderly.

"Where the _fuck_ were you?" His voice is low and deadly quiet. It makes me go pale. _He's angry? _

"I—I just went to check out the area," I stammer apologetically—even though I don't think I have anything to be sorry for.

"Tch." He gives me a hard shove, sending me bouncing off the stone. Then he walks away.

"What the hell, Levi?!" I shout after him. I just let myself get beat up for this little shit. _Again!_ I just scraped the bottom of my feet off so he wouldn't think I was dirty…and _this_ is what I get?

I take a few jerking, angry steps toward him, reaching out and taking him roughly by the shoulders and spinning him back around to face me. He goes stiff under my hands. "Don't..!" he ducks out of my grasp and I catch a glimpse of panic in his eyes. "Don't touch me!"

His foot connects with my gut and I'm doubled over for a long time, much longer than I actually need to be. I meter my breath until it's slow again. Levi is standing just a pace ahead of me, watching me, his breath still quick, like butterfly wings.

"Why didn't you tell me you were going?" he asks after a long time. His voice is small and sorry, but angry at the same time.

I look away from where my hands clutch my knees and raise my gaze. I find that his silvery eyes are watery. _He's hurt, _I realize with a pang. It's almost too hard to picture—him waking up, realizing that I wasn't there. Did he think that I had actually_ left_ him?

That in mind, I soften considerably. "I just wanted to help, Levi. I didn't mean to scare you."

"Tch. Scare me? Right."

"I am in the Survey Corp, you know. I thought I could do some scouting…you know."

He looks a bit ashamed all of a sudden, the way his cheeks suck in a little bit and he turns away for a second. When he looks back, the look is gone and his cold eyes appraise me like I'm used to. "What in the world happened to your feet?" A pause before I can answer and then, again, "Where are your goddam boots, Eren?!"

_Yeah, that…._ "I ran into a…gang."

"Shit, Eren, you're an idiot. I just got those for you, too. " He shakes his head and walks away again.

I want to be angry at the way he talks to me—so brash all the time no matter what he's feeling, no matter what I'm feeling—but I just can't be somehow. At least not angry enough to matter. I bite the inside of my lip and limp over to a clear space against the wall to lean on. It hurts. I want it to heal faster.

_Soon. It never takes long. Better you than him._

* * *

"How's your feet?"

I look up startled, having been nearly asleep. Bending forward to get a look at them, I'm happy to be able to say, "Pretty much all better." I glance up to meet Levi's eyes and we share a little smile.

A smile? From Levi?

"Then get up."

Confused, I stammer, "Wha—why?"

"Just get up," he demands. I obey. Once I'm standing, his gaze droops down to my waist. "I want you to teach me."

"Teach you _what_?" I practically squeak, feeling a blush start to creep back into my cheeks.

"How to fly, dumbass."

"Oh!" I quickly say, fumbling with the gear too fast, trying to shake off my embarrassing confusion. Something about Levi always brings out the worst in me. And the best. "Well sure, let's put it on you."

"No, no. First I want to know if it's possible."

My brows wrinkle as I try to think about what he means before asking and sounding silly again. I come up with nothing. "If what's possible?"

He points over his shoulder and up. "Do you think you can get through that hole up there? Using the gear?"

He's talking about the hole in the cave ceiling leading up to the surface, the one letting in all of the sunlight that had him beaming like a child only a few hours before. Apparently the thrill has already worn off and he's longing for more.

"Well? What do you think?" he prods.

It's a decent sized hole and I'm pretty sure that I could fit through it with the gear on, meaning that Levi definitely could. But the angles would be difficult even for me to maneuver, how could I possibly teach him to do it?

"Well?"

"It could be possible. Tricky though." That seems to satisfy him, so I offer, "First let's just teach you the basics."

It's not exactly easy. I'm awkward, buckling him up in the gear with shaky, self-conscious fingers. He's too small for it so it takes me longer to tug the straps as tight as they go, hoping that they won't slip and strangle him. He's eager and he tells me to hurry up. He even tries to help, his own small fingers slipping in beside mine. Even though he seemed panicked earlier, apparently he has no problem with me touching him now.

Once we've gotten him into the gear—at least, as good as it's going to get—he demands, "Ok. Tell me how."

It's hard to explain. I've never taught anyone before and we don't have any training equipment here. But when I say "pull this" and "lean like this," he does it, almost as if he was made to do this. I mean, he's not great. He's not even good as far as 3DMG work goes, but this is his day one and he's already moving like he's been training for weeks.

When his feet scuffle down and he drops to one knee, the wires shrieking back into canisters at his sides, he huffs out, "Geez. This hurts."

I laugh out loud, I'm too happy. It's too adorable. This is _Heichou._ I just taught Levi how to use 3DMG. My heart is fluttering out of my chest, it's singing. It's flying even though I'm the one on the ground watching him awkwardly flit from one cave wall to another.

"Do you get bruises from this?"

He's asking me this? Really? Oh my gosh he's too adorable. I can't…He keeps flying around, bumping into walls, cursing.

"Shit, this is stupid. Why do you people use this stuff?"

He's up at the ceiling, bumping his head. He's back on the ground, tripping through the pond and shaking water off of his feet, talking about angles. "It's gonna take awhile to figure out but, I think I could do it."

"We could actually do it."

"I could get out of here…holy shit…this, could work!"

It's late and the sun is setting. "I'm doing this right, right?"

"Yeah. You're a natural, Levi."

"Really?" his tone veiled, like he doesn't dare to believe it.

"Yeah, you're the best I've seen." Not really true, not yet anyway. But he will be.

"Don't lie, asshole."

"I'm not!" I assure him as he lands a few feet away from me, his chest heaving in and out from the exertion of practice. "Nobody picks it up this fast. I nailed my head the first time I tried it. Almost failed the test and got kicked out of the military."

He gives me an inquisitive look, like he's considering my words. I doubt that the part about me is what he's thinking over. It shouldn't be hard for him to believe that I'm a lousy learner. It must be the part about him—the idea that he could be notable for something, that he could be good for something other than survival—that's what must be tripping him up.

I think back to the first time I stumbled into the alcove where he was sleeping. _There's old wooden planks scattered everywhere, like the ones the buildings are made of, only these are the throw-aways, too far gone to be of use to anyone anymore. _

And I have to make the connection. If my words are true, that makes him more than just a throw-away child. That's why he has to think it through.

The sunrays fall too low to make it through the hole in the ceiling in just moments and he has to stop practicing. In the dark I hear him trying to take things off. I want to help. Everything is forgotten once more: that he's a mean little shit sometimes, that he's prickly and unpredictable as fuck. I don't care. I just want to make him happy whenever and however I can.

I find him in the dark by the sounds the buckles make. "Let me—" I begin, warning him before my searching hands land on his body. I find his shoulders first, then I droop to my knees and there's his chest. The buckles come undone when my fingers move over them, as if by magic. My hands trail further, feathering over his torso and he says nothing. Still thinking, I guess. When I get to the buckles at his waist his hands stop mine, soft touches, warning the dark, pulling me away slowly.

"We can get out of here," he whispers down to me.

His hands have stopped and mine don't want to leave, so they sit inside of his small fingers, motionless.

"Right?" he asks—_no_—he begs.

I search for his eyes but I can barely see them in the dark. I say, as assuredly as I can, "Absolutely, Levi."

Then his hands move away from mine and the gear is all slipping off of his body. He steps away and stoops to pile it neatly on the floor. "Okay."

I hear it in his voice. I feel it in my heart.

He believes it.


	8. Chapter 8

Noises make me stir in the night and a few moments after waking I realize how uncomfortable I am. I feel sticky, like I've come out of the confusing black oil again. I roll my neck so that my face grinds into the stone floor and give a little groan. _What time is it? _I wonder. My limbs are stiff and cold and there's a drumming noise all around me.

_Not the oil. It's….raining? Underground?_

I prop myself up on one elbow and try to look around but it's really dark. No star light is making its way through the hole in the ceiling tonight. _The hole, that's it. Rain's coming through there. _

I thought I was sticky at first but sticky isn't really the right word. More like clammy. It's damp and cold. I'm not wet exactly. The rain must be falling down from the hole—pouring into the little pond puddle and spraying a bit—but not quite reaching me where I am against the wall. But still, the midst of rainfall and the cool night air is enough to make me shiver badly.

I hug my cloak tighter around my body and squeeze my eyes shut, trying to fall back asleep. The faster I get back to it the easier it is.

Somehow I hear Levi's ragged sniffle from a few yards away even over the rain sounds. He must be awake too.

Is he cold? He must be. I'm freezing and I've got a good twenty, thirty pounds on him. Not to mention that the old cloak I gave him is much thinner than my Survey Corp cloak is. I think he's closer to the rainfall than I am, too. He'll catch a cold. He'll be exhausted from being up all night, I worry, feeling sleep creep further and further away from me as well.

"Levi?"

"Hmmnng...mmm?" It's a shaky little reply because the shivers cut through this throat.

_Aren't you cold? _I want to say, but that's stupid. What I really want to say is, _Come over here,_ but I don't because I'm too scared. Scared of that _Tch_ that would doubtlessly follow.

Finally I just sigh out, "I'm freezing. Can't sleep."

I can picture him smooshing his lips together and drooping his shoulders more tightly to the floor—although only slightly—in agreement. He doesn't say anything. I picture him closing his eyes, trying to sleep but having the rain drill into his ears, having my words echo as I hope they will: _I'm freezing. I'm freezing. _

How many nights in the late winter and early spring when the ground was frozen had he laid curled up under throw-away planks, all alone, shivering, teeth chatter, thinking those words to himself over and over. Thinking that tonight might be the night he would finally freeze to death.

There's no sounds but the rain and my own huffing breaths for a long time, but he does finally get up, twisting the thin cloak around his torso and shoulders and stutter stepping over to me like his knees are locked up. Levi doesn't say a word as he crunches down next to me and tosses the right half of his cloak over my body, curling up so he can fit in it with me.

It makes me feel sick: the idea that he would give up half of what little he has for _me_ makes me feel so guilty that I'm ready to vomit, so I shrug it off and readjust the cloaks so that we're both squished together under both of them as quickly as I possibly can. He gives a little grunt but says nothing, just settles in against the left side of my rib cage.

"So this is…_rain_, huh?" he says the word slowly, like he's tasting it, still not sure if he likes the flavor.

_Oh yeah, that's right. He's probably never seen rainfall before. _Muddy water sifted through the earth and oozing down stone walls isn't anything like this. "Yup."

"Well, it sucks."

I force a light giggle, shaky and weak because my teeth are chattering. "Well, we're not really in the best spot to enjoy a rainstorm tonight."

"Hmm."

I linger on the thought—that we're not in a very good spot. It's true. The harsh drumming and whooshing roaring of the rain hitting the pond tells me that it's probably growing. I can't see to tell, but I'm sure that the pond is probably close to reaching us, or at least it will be soon. There's cracks in the cave walls so we won't drown in here unless a waterfall suddenly comes pouring through that hole, but still. We could be swamped out if this rain doesn't let up in a few hours.

"It's the wind that's making you cold, right?" I ask him. I feel him nod against my arm. "Yeah, I guess it's not that windy underground normally, is it?"

"N-no."

The drumming of the rain into the pond forms a rhythm that matches with Levi's quivering. I tug the cloaks tighter around us, hoping to warm him by pressing him even closer against me. He doesn't protest at all, as I once would have expected him to. Instead he snuggles into the tightening embrace, wriggling his neck again my shoulder to get into a more comfortable position.

Somehow I feel myself stop shaking, as if his presence alone is enough to make me ultimately relaxed. _You're so lucky, Eren, _I think to myself, too happy deep down even to smile. "I'm sorry about leaving this afternoon," I say, turning my head so that my chin is touching the top of his hair. I feel like I didn't apologize properly earlier. "I shouldn't have gone without telling you. I just didn't want to wake you up, you know? You were so…" _Peaceful. Cute. Adorable. _"…tired."

"Eh. I'm always tired."

"Must be," I mutter, thinking and talking at the same time. "I don't think I'd sleep very well either if I was all alone out in the open."

"I don't sleep _out in the open_."

"Yeah…well you know._ Alone_, at least."

He sniffles. I feel the cloaks get even tauter as he tugs on a corner and swipes it at his face. "I thought you said your parents died too, though."

"Well, my mom did."

As if showing that he's sorry for me, he rubs his check lightly against my shoulder. I feel myself start to get choked up a little at his action_. Levi… _"I was never alone, though," I go on, thinking of Mikasa and Armin, "I always had friends looking out for me."

"You're lucky, Eren."

Did he have friends? Was there anyone looking out for him on those nights when he was alone while his mother was away…or later when she was really gone for good? I try to picture him with others, fighting for survival together, clinging to each other on cold nights like we're doing right now—but I can't. It becomes painfully obvious that he's always been alone.

_Always until now. _

There's a harsh whistle as the wind whips against the hole from above ground, broken through by a peel of thunder. "It's loud," he notes. Louder than he's ever heard. It must remind him of gunshots, I think, the only other thing comparable that he'd have been exposed to. Maybe.

"Did you sleep at all?" I ask him. My head is on top of his and so close that my lips move his long black locks when I talk, when I breathe.

"Not really. Did you?"

"I did, but then the rain woke me up." He makes a small noise of recognition that gets drowned by the rain. "I'm surprised you couldn't sleep after all that exercise," I tease, thinking back to his time on the 3DMG.

"Tch. That stuff hurts," he says again, but he quickly drops the annoyed tone and adds, "It's…useful though. I bet nobody would be able to catch me if I had that."

"Who's trying to catch you?" I blurt out without thinking. Surely not those guys from before. They're long gone, he shouldn't be worrying about that anymore…should he? I pull away a little to try and look him in the face, but his grip on the cloaks keeps me in place. "Levi?"

"Why did you call me heichou?"

I blink in surprise. "What?"

"When you first saw me. You said, 'Levi Heichou'."

_Why this question all of a sudden? How am I supposed to answer this?_ "I…I can't remember a lot. I hit my head and—"

"Were you just making fun of me or what?"

"No! No, I would never."

He loosens his grip on the far edge of the cloaks and leans back so that we separate a few inches and suddenly he's glaring up at me with eyes that gleam dull in the dark. "Then tell me why."

"I really don't—"

"Please."

I can't speak, my mouth is too dry even as the misty rain seeps into the exposed skin of our faces. I don't know. Do I know? It'll sound too crazy if I try to explain what little I can remember. He'll just think I'm mocking him.

After a minute or two, he pokes my collarbone with the tip of his finger and I can't stay quiet anymore. "I think….that I knew you before. Not now, later. In the future."

"Tch, come on—"

"No, I'm serious. I have no idea how I got here. I just have all of these little…_memories_ like. Of me. And of you. And you're…_shit_ you're amazing, Levi. You're in the Survey Corp and—"

"Shut the hell up," he says, but I know that he doesn't really mean it because he lets me keep on talking and he snuggles up tight against me again.

"Like I said, you're a natural at the 3DMG, remember? Well in the future you're—like—out of this world good. And you beat me up a lot. But I trust you. I trust you in my memories, that's why I trusted you here." I say to him softly. He's listening patiently. I really, really wish that I could see his expressions, but it's too dark. Does he think I'm insane? Is he interested? Does he believe me? I go on, saying, "In the memories, you're my immediate captain in the military. That's why I called you heichou. I can't remember much else, but I do remember that you become Humanities Strongest Soldier."

Apparently that's going too far. "No I'm not," he whispers. "I'm a just whore's kid."

"No you're not," I choke out, grabbing his arm unconsciously.

"But I am."

"But you're not _just _that."

He bows his head into the crook of my arm and chest and his breath comes out soft. "Well, that's all I am to him."

My arm goes around his shoulders like I used to do to Armin when he would cry about his parents. I know that I'm awkward, but he slips into the curve of my body anyway, perhaps shivering more now than before. Is it because of me? Or _him_?

"Who's _him_?"

Levi mutters coldly through shallow, metered breaths, "I think….he's my father."

I wrinkle my brow. No, there's no way that he could know that, all things considered. Suddenly an extra rush of the rain drags my mind back through the ocean in my nightmare. _"How could you do that to him, Kenny? Why the hell would you do something like that? I specifically said…God! You could be his father for all I know." _Those were words that must have been real. Words that made it worse for him. Words that stuck in his head and changed his perception forever.

"You think he's the one who's trying to catch you?"

"I know he is."

He sounds so calm, but it's all fake and I know it. His body is so close to mine, I can feel his tension, his quivering. I slide my other hand down his arm until my hand finds his. When my fingers slip inside of his palm, he grabs onto them.

"I won't let him get you," I vow, holding his small hand tightly within mine. "You don't have to worry, anymore. You're safe." He sniffles again and this time he rubs his nose on my shoulder. "We'll keep practicing and then we'll go above ground, alright? I promise."

"Yeah?"

"I _promise_." I give his hand a reassuring squeeze. "Now….try to get some sleep. I'm not gonna leave again."

We fit together like puzzle pieces, the cloaks twisted around us as tightly as possible. The puddle stops growing before it reaches the spot where we lay. I just stay there silent, listening to the rain slowly die down and Levi's breathing become relaxed as he drifts away into his first real sleep in a while. I fall asleep hoping that he'll have pleasant dreams for once.

* * *

Levi wakes up first. His movement in sitting up yanks on the cloaks, jerking me out of a deep sleep. "Eren," he hisses, pulling me further into consciousness. He sounds startled. I open my eyes. The dim, gray light tells me that it's nearly dawn. Levi's squirming out of the cloaks, tying to stand up, jostling me around.

"What?" I groan, half sitting up. I rub at my sleepy eyes with the back of my hand. When had he let go of it? Sometime in the night or just now upon waking? I glance up to get a look at him and my brain wakes up fully when I notice that his chest is heaving in and out. "What? What's wrong?"

My head snaps in the direction of the sound as the third rock gets pushed out of the wall crack. _Someone's coming in!_

I leap up from the cave floor and scramble for our knife as fast as my tired limbs can manage. "Get behind me," I snap at Levi, and he does. Without a word.

In a split second, two boys fall through the crack. Once I get a glance at their faces my heart sinks. _Damn it! _I know them. It's the tall gang leader and the blonde boy. _They followed me here? _A flash of anger lights up in my stomach.

"What the_ hell_ are you doing?" I snarl at them. Just the sight of them makes me furious. The tall one looks smug in the early morning gray—similar to his earlier expression—only this time he seems a bit off. And he's wearing my boots, which makes me blush angrily. The blonde one stands to his right, and he looks down-right nervous. What the hell is going on here? "You followed me?" I accuse, barely containing my rage. "You _said_ you'd leave me alone if I gave you—"

"Ehh, shut up," says the tall one.

"How…how long were you there?!" I cry, growing more and more outraged at the idea that they'd been lurking just outside for all this time: through the fight, the 3DMG practice….the rainstorm. _I'll kill them. _

"Hey, you."

"Answer the question," I practically shout.

"God, will you shut up?" the tall one chirps at me. He rolls his eyes, tilting his head as if trying to look around me. _At Levi? _I grit my teeth. "Hey, kid. You're Levi, right?"

"Don't talk to him," I growl, putting my arm out across his body protectively. I hear a little shuffle of feet as he steps to the side so that he's fully behind my body. A shadow.

The two gang boys start walking toward us. With every step they take I feel my heart rate picking up even more. "Stay back," I warn, brandishing the knife in their direction. The tall one slops through our little pond on his way over. The blonde steps carefully around it.

"You're Levi?" the tall one asks again.

"I said, don't talk to him!" That's when the gun comes out again and like lightning I fly at the blonde—the unarmed one—I grab his mop of blonde hair, yank his head back, and press the blade against the soft lines on the side of his neck. He gives a little yelp of fear and then goes quiet.

"Relax, Farlan," comes the smug tone of the leader. I glance up without moving the blade and there's Levi at gunpoint, expressionless. Just silent, big eyes staring right at me.

"Don't touch him," I say, as calm as I can. The blonde twitches under my hands. He's scared.

He's not listening to me. He's only interested in Levi. "My name's Sammy," he says, "and that's Farlan. You're Levi."

Quietly, toneless, "Yeah."

"Don't talk to him! I swear to god I will kill this guy," I threaten, pressing the knife a little harder to make the blonde squeal. I see Levi stiffen out of the corner of my eye.

But the leader doesn't seem to care. "Don't worry, Levi. I'm not supposed to hurt you."

"Sa-Sammy?"

"Shut up, Farlan."

Levi stops looking at me and shoots the blonde a nervous glance.

The leader goes on talking to him, saying, "You should come with me. I have a place to stay nicer than this old hole. And food."

"Don't, Levi! They're with _him_!" When the tall one grabs Levi's arm, I lose it. "DON'T TOUCH HIM!" The knife digs deeper and the blonde starts squawking.

"Sammy!"

It's not Sammy who answers. "Eren, don't!" The blonde flicks terrified eyes back and forth between Levi and I, obviously shocked. "Don't kill him!"

_Why the hell not? _They're trying to abduct him, to take him away from me. I can't let this happen. What would happen if I killed this kid? Maybe the tall one would finally stop messing around and pay attention to me.

"Don't." It's a plea and I see it in his eyes now. I feel my resolve weaken. Levi stares at me. He looks sad and frightened, but he keeps a firm upper lip as I would expect from him in daylight. I blink back angry tears as my arm drops away.


	9. Chapter 9

_Why did I hesitate? Why did I listen to him? _I wonder as the knife moves from my hand to the blonde's. _That was the one time…the one time that I should have disobeyed him. _

Spinning and ducking madly, I try to fight these guys once again. I need to go for that gun, that's the problem here! Reaching out as far as my arms can, I end up half running, half falling toward the leader with a loud battle cry.

Hot and cold all at once, like metal—and I didn't see it coming. The shocked scream tears out of me by itself when the pain centers and slices through my arm. "Ahh!" I fall, barely catching myself with my unhurt arm before I would have smashed my face on the rocks. "Nnnhg ouww!" My right hand shoots up to clutch the wound automatically and I find my upper arm wet and hot. Blood.

I expected it to have been the leader and his gun, but now I'm realizing that there had been no firing of a weapon. My eyes are glittering dark with tears of pain but when I look up frantically, searching for the cause, sure enough it's the blonde standing there with _my_ knife now slick with my blood. _That son of a bitch! He….cut me?_

It's deep but it's not anyplace too dangerous. The side of my upper left arm is sliced wide open, the wound pulsating like a little heart on the outside of me, dribbling blood down my sleeve. It hurts so badly that I feel like it must be life threatening, but it's not even that large: only two inches in length at most. "You'll be ok," the blonde says from above. I shoot him a vicious glare as he bends to yank me up by the under arm.

The next thing I know they're prodding me out of the cave, Levi and the blonde up ahead of me, the prick of the gun's muzzle poking in between my shoulder blades. "Come on, seriously? Hurry the fuck up," the tall on is grumbling behind me, but I'm not listening to him. I'm watching Levi.

_I could have done something. I can still stop this. Why did he tell me not to? Why would he do that?_

"Don't worry," the blonde one says to Levi in a low tone. He's holding my knife to Levi's throat like I had done to him just a minute earlier, doubtlessly smearing my blood onto Levi's pale, bruised throat. They're walking further and further away from me, so I have to hurry to catch them. "I don't want to kill _you _either, alright? Just do whatever Sammy says or he'll have to kill your friend." He pulls Levi a little closer and I hardly hear the quiet, sincere, "I'm sorry."

Levi wouldn't let me do what I had to do when I had a chance, but even so, I still refuse to go quietly. "Levi, no! Don't just go along with them! We have to fight!"

I get wailed in the back with the gun and I grunt out another pained cry as my hurt arm is jostled. It startles Levi. "Don't do anything, Eren!" he orders.

_Why the hell not?!_

The next few minutes melt into a blur of rage for me. I want to _do_ something. That's all I keep thinking as they lead us along through the maze of the underground, deeper and deeper. Just give me an opportunity. I want to fight.

_If only I had had my 3DMG on, maybe some way, somehow we could have just escaped through the hole in the ceiling. _But no, we hadn't been ready at all. We'd been _cuddling_. I feel sick over it, now.

There are no opportunities, somehow. Levi never even tries to look back at me. He just goes along with the blonde—who isn't even really holding the knife that tightly on him, anyway. He holds Levi with less of a hostage type posture and more of a protective one. His arm is around Levi's shoulders, holding him close. I hate him for it.

_I wish I'd killed him when I had the chance. Then it would have been two on one and I wouldn't be injured and we wouldn't be in this mess!_

After what might be twenty minutes of walking, we suddenly stop. I have no idea why, it doesn't seem like we've arrived anywhere yet, but by now I'm dizzy from blood loss and exertion. I'm not scared, though, because I know it'll heal. I'm just angry. "What now?" I hiss at them. The tall one steps around me and the gun's in my face again.

"Close your eyes," he commands. I narrow my eyes at him defiantly and I hear the familiarly threatening _click-click._

"You too," the blonde gently requests of Levi. I turn to look at them and see Levi let his eyes fall shut.

"Levi—"

"Eren," he implores me. His voice is so small now, yet somehow it still holds the power to keep my attention. I can't ignore it. It's impossible. My teeth grit and grind together so loudly that everyone must hear it, but in the end I obey him. Him. I obey Heichou. Not them. I squeeze my eyes shut.

"Good boy." I try to jerk away when I feel a hand grabbing at the front of my shirt, but I don't get anywhere. The tall one has my shirt bunched up in his fist and he's pulling me forward, following the less erratic sounds of Levi and the blonde stepping on ahead of us. "Keep 'em shut," he warns me, pressing the gun against my temple to let me know that he's serious.

Stumbling on, pulled and led by the fist on my chest, I feel like I'll fall but he never lets me. We turn left twice and then go right. A square of the cobblestone that sticks up makes me trip forward into the other boy with a wide lurching step. He swears at me, looping me around by the elbow before grabbing my shirt snug again.

I've lost track of the turns.

Just when I get tempted to open my eyes and have a peek, he reads my mind, grimacing, "I swear, I will fuckin' bring 'im your eyeballs on a platter. You hear me? Peek and it's the last thing you'll see."

The next familiar thing that comes to me is the sound of a door opening—it's heavy, like the big doors in the Survey Corp headquarters—and it creaks deep and low as we walk through the frame. Only once it has been shut again do they say that we can open our eyes.

We are standing in a big room full of wood, brass, and dim lantern light. There are people everywhere—two other boys at the doors we must have just came through. They're young like us, like the tall one and Farlan. And there's more young people around. Boys from the gang that stopped me, girls in dresses with fine little tears along the seams. Some of them remind me of Mikasa, with those steely eyes that warn everyone away. Some are young. Very young and small, so much smaller even than Levi.

I should feel angry _for_ them, not at them. What kind of lives must they have? Do I dare to imagine? But somehow none of that matters to me now. All I care about it getting Levi out of here. They're just blocking our way.

_I have a promise to keep, _I think, _somehow. _

There should be adults here. There should be women like Levi's mother, shouldn't there? Why only kids? I don't want to have to kill kids to get out of here.

"Follow me," the tall one says to us. For the first time I realize that he has once again tucked the gun away. I guess he doesn't feel like he needs it anymore now that we're in here. Apparently I'm no threat to him with so many others around. _Bastard._

As we walk, the tall one up ahead, leading the way, and the blonde boxing us in hesitantly from behind, I weave my way up to Levi's side and slip his hand into mine. The moment I feel him my heart clenches angrily, sadly, _goddammit! _He's shaking like a leaf. I give his tiny hand a tight squeeze, hoping to reassure him, but I doubt that it could possibly help. How can I make him feel less frightened when I'm completely at a loss myself?

"What are you thinking?" I whisper hoarsely, still confused about why the hell he stopped me from saving us back in the cave. He only shakes his head. It's a small, frantic movement, betraying the fact that he's terrified. I squeeze his hand again. "It's ok, it'll be fine, I'll think of something."

Like a sob, he gasps out, "Don't be stupid!"

_What?! _"Why?" _I thought you wanted me to protect you! _"These guys are—"

"I don't want you to die." It's noisy in the room with all of the others around, but everything gets tuned out at his words. It's just whispers on the fringe. I stare at the side of Levi's small head while he walks. "I hate when people die for no reason," he says.

"I—" What can I say? I can't say that I won't die. Not to him. Not when he's probably heard it from so many people who ended up just to be lying. Like his mom. Finally, soft as a prayer, I assure him, "It wouldn't be for no reason, Levi."

He talks too fast, too ready to shut me down. "He said that he's not supposed to hurt me. They won't kill me. So no one has to die over it." His words are so sure although his voice is small. It's as if these are phrases he has told himself over and over again-principles that he lives by.

My mouth drops open, I can't help it. It's like he's saying, _I won't get killed, so why should you care enough to risk anything? _My heart drums madly in the back of my throat as indignation joins the anger and the fear. There are worse things than dying….he told me that himself.

I jump to argue with him but the tall one spins back around just at that moment. Apparently he finally noticed us talking and now he wants it to stop. So I bite my tongue and do the only thing I can do for now: hold on to his hand.

_For now. _I have to remind myself that I'm only helpless for now. Levi doesn't want me to die….doesn't want anyone to die. Well, I can't speak for anyone else, but I'll make sure that the two of us don't.

The interior of this building is just as much of a maze as the underground itself. There's dozens of rooms branching this way and that, some large as a house some small as a closet, and there's people in all of them. Other gang members? Whores?

_My god, it's mostly all kids. The people that do this...they are…they're, they're monsters! _The next thought pings into my brain like a virus that will certainly devour me later on. _And how old was she—when she had Levi? When they finally murdered her?_

Luckily I can't think about it for too long because a second pair of impressive doors are suddenly before us and the leader is giving them a sharp knock and then pulling them open, directing, "In here." It's dim inside, just like everywhere else down here, so I can't see far into the room as I follow Levi and the leader inside. When the blonde draws the door closed behind us, I feel Levi's steps falter slightly ahead of me.

"Father?" the tall one calls tentatively. I squint into the shadowy yellow of the room and find nothing but big chair against the far wall—empty. When my eyes adjust enough to see clearly, I notice that there's another door in the far corner.

_An escape route, _I think hopefully. But I'm wrong. A second later it opens with a bang, the door flying open and smashing into the far wall, nearly hitting the tall one who had walked over to it in the hesitant silence. He has to take a quick step back to avoid the swing.

And Levi responds like a mirror, practically hoping backward into me like a scared rabbit when the new voice grunts out, "What the hell you calling for?"

"I…I brought them just like you said to," the tall boy says, bowing his head slightly as a very tall, thin man comes tromping out of the side door. He kicks it shut as he goes and the heavy _bang!_ of the wood is loud enough to make Levi flinch again. My arm shoots up to wrap around his shoulders, but he flinches out of that touch as well.

I grit my teeth, anger consuming my expression, making my eyes narrow into frightful slits under furious, furrowing brows. _Who the hell…how dare this guy terrify Levi like this!_

"Yeah? Alight then, get out."

"But sir—"

"What the hell you still wearing those goddamn boots for? Didn't I tell you to sell those things?"

The tall boy looks down at my Survey Corp boots and swallows heavily. "Yessir, I will. I'm sorry, I—"

"Farlan?"

"Sir?" shaky, like a child. I can tell that the blonde is scared of this man, too. He steps up behind Levi and I, into the man's line of sight.

"You go with him. Get me forty for these military, sparkly ass boots, got it? Use that smart mouth of yours. Anything less and somebody's gonna get it."

"Yessir." He looks to the taller boy, waiting for him, but he's hesitant to leave. He stands near the man, as if waiting for something else, for him to say something, to do something. When the hesitation becomes too much, Farlan mutters nervously, "Come on, Sammy."

"We got a new knife for you, father," Sammy pipes up hopefully. "Show 'im, Farlan."

Before the blonde can decide whether or not to move a muscle, the man drawls, "You think I give a rat's ass about another knife? _Another _one? I'll take you back there and show you the store room myself, Sammy," he threatens, and the boy goes pale. "Now _get_, and don't make me fuckin' tell you again."

"Yessir." It's a quick little mutter, barely audible to my ears as Sammy trots in our direction to meet Farlan at the door. When he's behind us, the man's addition stops him in his tracks.

"Take the big boy with you, Sammy."

I don't realize that he means me until Sammy grabs my arm again. "No!" I shout, jerking away from his grasp. "No, I'm not…I'm not leaving him."

The sound of the man's sarcastic laughter grates on my eardrums like sandpaper and makes my hair stand on end. I hate him. He's standing over there in a long black coat with a black hat over his grey hair, smirking down at us, mocking us with that wicked laugh, making Levi tremble where he stands_. I hate him so much._

When his laughter trails off into a phlegmy, hacking cough, the man turns his rat eyes on Levi. I hear Levi's breath suck in dramatically. "Where you been, boy?"

Levi's tiny hand suddenly has enough strength to nearly break mine when he squeezes. He doesn't answer, I doubt that he can, his breathing is far too shaky, his throat constricted—practically spasming in fear.

"You made a new friend, hmm?" the man laughs. "I don't see how…spiteful, shitty little brat. Ain't got an ounce of gratefulness in you—runnin' off on me after all I've done for you." He shakes his head and clicks his tongue in mock disappointment, like he's talking to a naughty child. "Getchur ass over here."

Levi _squeaks _and my heart jumps into my throat. _I'll kill this guy. I will._

Levi barely shakes his head, he's too scared to move. "_Don't _argue with me, boy. You know better than that." His breath comes out in quivering puffs as he releases my hand and robotically tiptoes over to the man.

"Levi!" His names tumbles out of my mouth, I reach my hand out after him. _No, no, no._

"I dunno where you got your shit attitude from, boy, but we'll improve that over time," the man is saying, looking Levi's small frame over with a vicious glint in his eyes. As soon as Levi gets close enough, the man has him by the collar. "Look at you!" he exclaims, sounding surprised. His right hands strokes over the soft skin of Levi's face and throat, making me see red.

"Don't…" I growl, tensing to start across the room. Before I can take a step, Sammy's got his arm around my neck, locking me in place.

"Your new _friend_ do this to you?" he asks suggestively, his eyes roaming slowly over the purple, green, and black that paint Levi's face. "Hmm? He seems a little bit possessive, don't he, Sammy?"

"Yeah. He's an asshole, too," Sammy says too close to my ear and I'm struggling now. With every word they say I see Levi shrink deeper and deeper into himself. I can't watch this.

"You owe me a lot of money, you know," the man is telling him, brushing long, bony fingers through the black wisps on Levi's forehead. "You're…what? Three, four months behind schedule?

"He doesn't work for you!" I'm yelling. "He doesn't belong to you, you son of bitch! Let us go!"

He laughs again, right in Levi's face. "Get 'im outta here, Sammy. Go take him down with your boys. Get 'im fed and then knock him out. He'll feel more agreeable in the morning, I think. He should be a good help to you, nice big boy like that."

"No!" I'm screaming, choking myself against the arm that's trying to yank me backward out of the opening door. "No, Levi!"

_I can't let them separate us! I can't let them take me away, can't leave him alone—_

Somehow Levi musters up the courage to say, "He's right, I don't work for you."

"Shit, kid! Don't tell me he's been talking nonsense into that thick little head of yours," the man scoffs. "Apparently your bitch mother didn't wise you up _enough_."

_Stop talking, stop fucking talking to him like that, you monstrous piece of filth! _

"You _do_ belong to me. Just like your ol'mother did, you hear me?"

"No."

He lands a heavy slap on Levi's already bruised face and I see red.

I'm gurgling up saliva as Sammy's arm chokes me. The man doesn't pay any attention, even as Sammy starts yelling to Farlan for help. The hand that hit Levi is holding his chin now, he's spitting on his face as he talks. _Don't touch him! How dare you? How can you…? I will KILL you! Kill him kill him kill him, make him bleed, make him PAY_

"You're just like her, you little whore! Bringing him along with you, bringing him in here to me. Ungrateful. Miserable little _shit_. Did you forget who I am? Hmm? Fucking, pathetic little tramp—you know I always thought you'd be worthless without me peddling your ass—and now, come to find out you're a natural born and bred slut, aren't you?"

_DON'T TALK TO HEICHOU LIKE THAT! _I try to shout it out but I can't talk, my throat is collapsing, they're on top of me—Sammy and Farlan both, and still they can barely hold me down. I can feel my heart beating faster than it ever has before, ready to pop out of my chest at any second. My skin is on fire.

"What the hell!?" Sammy gasps over me. I hear the fear in his voice now.

"I'll have him fucked right out of your system, boy," the man snarls and Levi's biting his lips to hold back tears that can't be stopped. "I ain't lettin' you do this shit to me ever again. I'll learn you right this time."

_I have to stop this I have to I have to do something, I'll kill him, I'll never ever ever let him touch Levi again, or anyone ever again. Kill kill KILL!_

My skin bursts into flame, I'm melting, I'm sinking into the floor. The boys are scattering away from me in a panic. Everything is screaming in agony, burning into ash. My skin rips apart.

_I'LL KILL HIM! I'LL EXTERMINATE THEM ALL!_

There's a flash like lightning where everything goes silent just for a moment, and in the numbing quiet, big black drops, heavy as blood, come raining down on me, clogging up my eyes, making everything blur and fade, fade...fade...until Levi's crying face full of dread is gone and the oil comes to steal me again.


	10. Chapter 10

_Suddenly the room is gone, the chair is gone. Kenny is long gone, drowned in the oil, and Levi, Sammy, and Farlan along with him. I'm cold. Plummeting to the earth from heaven. So, so cold. My skin is unraveling like cotton fibers, long and thin, like hair. There is a plate of ice beneath me. I see it coming, getting closer and closer and closer_

_And when I smash straight through it, I keep my eyes open. _

_"Eren?" _

_It's a small voice from far away that I cannot recognize. It's cold as snow, fragile as ice, ready to shatter at any moment._

_Where am I? Something didn't work properly._

_"What's wrong with him?" comes the tone of a woman, but really more like a girl. _

_The voice that I can never lose from my mind comes next, to my left, cold but not unkind, floating in the void. "He over exerted himself training today."_

_Will he be alright? No one asks that in particular, but many people wonder. It seems like many people care. _

_A gust of wind comes to brush all of the forms and the voices away and I'm lost, spinning madly down toward the ground through the icy clouds and past the snowflakes that hit my face and make me feel things and know things that had been lost to me. _

_Like how I'm a Titan, not a soldier. And how it didn't work, somehow, and that's why I'm here—floating in the freeze—lost in time again. _

_Suddenly two men are nearby, the weight of the one on my left dips the world and makes me tip dangerously. "Don't you think you were too hard on him?" comes the form of a man on the right side, farther away. _

_"No, I don't." This one is so stubborn and so wise. This is the voice that never has to be remembered because it cannot be forgotten. He's talking again, and I think, Thank God. "A little adversity is good for young people," the form goes on. "It makes us who we are."_

_Levi. It's Levi beside me, talking about important things. _

_"Well," comes the other. His breathing is very steady, like a well maintained clock. "I guess you would know about that, if anyone would." Commander Erwin? He sounds close but I can't find him. And Levi Heichou is beside me, on the other side of a yard-thick glass wall so that I can barely hear his words spoken in earnest. _

_"We aren't who we are without our trials."_

_They start to blur but I don't want them to leave. Please don't go. Please come back. I'm freezing to death. I want you, Levi, I need you to come back and keep me from freezing. I'm so cold. _

_I'm lost. I don't know any more. _

_I need Levi to tell me what to do now that I'm useless. _

_Where are you? I need you to tell me. _

_Everything is cold and blowing, turning white until there's nothing left at all. Nothing but—_

He meets me somewhere in the middle.

I'm not even fully done hacking the freezing oil out of my system before he's crouched over me, his knee in my gut, a knife to my throat. He's snarling things at me so furious and quiet that I can't understand what I've done wrong this time—only that my life is in danger.

"Levi! Levi, stop!" I gasp, scurrying backward on my bottom away from the blade until my back thumps into a wall. "Stop! It's me!"

His growl turns into a heavy gasp and then it's his turn to scuttle backwards. "Eren? Holy…Shit! I almost killed you."

There's an awkward moment of assessment on both sides.

He's older now, taller—but still short, much shorter than me—his face has lost some of its childlike charm and while he's still very thin I can make out wiry muscle under his plain white shirt and vest. This must be sometime...?

To me, he says bluntly, "How do you look exactly the same? It's been almost four years."

_Four years after that night in cave._ I force a smile even though I'd rather cry. The only thing keeping me together is the fact that here before me is Levi, alive and seemingly well after whatever inevitably transpired those four years ago. "I told you," I say, "I'm really not from around here."

We get up from the floor—which I'm glad to note is a real floor and not just dirt or trash. With a quick look around, I discover that we're in a small room with a table and a few chairs cluttered around it."Do you live here now?" I question, letting go of his hand. He had offered it to me when I was getting up.

"Yeah."

_He has furniture now, _I note, trying to be positive, _and a roof over his head. _

"And Farlan, too, remember him?"

This is a surprise to me. "Farlan? That asshole with the little boy's gang?!"

"Tch," he gives a wry chuckle and walks away from me, heading toward the table, "Yeah him. He's okay, actually." He sits at the table and I come to join him. The chair squeaks when I sit down. "And remember that little girl?" When he gets nothing but a blank stare, he elaborates, "The little redhead who came to us begging?" I eventually clear my mind enough to remember, and I nod. But he doesn't say anything else about her. He just smiles and taps his finger on the table absentmindedly. I have to raise an eyebrow at the uncharacteristic display, but before I can say anything he asks, "What are you doing here," as if I have control over where and when I appear to him.

_If only, _I wish. If I could, I would go back and be there with him every time she left him alone, wondering when or if she would come back to him, every time he had to steal to eat…every time that puffy bottom lip started trembling and no one was there to stop—I would make sure to be there.

I blink rapidly, making sure that I won't cry, now, in front of him. That's the last thing he deserves. "I'm glad to see that you're doing ok."

"Mm."

"What…..what's happened?" I ask. _What happened after I couldn't save you like I promised? What did they…_ I'm not sure he'll answer me, though. I'm not sure I want him to.

In the silence that follows, I notice for the first time that it must be raining above ground, because the low rumble of thunder makes everything seem raw. I can't hear raindrops necessarily, but the sensation of a storm far away is eerily familiar.

Will rain always remind me of that night in the cave? Does it do the same to him? Can he look back fondly on those last pleasant moments of freedom together or is it all lost or despised because of what followed?

"Did…did you…?"

"They trained me," he says bluntly. "I worked for Sammy for like a year."

"Sammy?" _What? Not Kenny? _They let him join the gang instead? My heart starts fluttering with tentative relief. It's almost too good to be true. Is he lying to me because he won't admit what they _really_ made him do?

"Then Kenny offed him and I took over. We started doing our own thing, Farlan and I. And that's that."

My mind is flying into overdrive. He worked with Sammy and the boys? Not Kenny? That's not possible…not with the way I left things. But that must mean…

My heart which had just begun to lift again now sinks deeper into despair. No…no, no, no! This means that this isn't real…not yet. And it can't be real unless I change the past again. Warm, sickly nausea starts pooling in my gut as the realization of what I must do dawns on me. I have to change what happened with Kenny on that night if I want this Heichou-_my Levi Heichou_-to ever exist.

His words echo back to me. "We_ aren't who we are without our trials." _

By trying to protect him, had I only made things worse?

"You… you went off on your own?" I stammer, just to fill the silence.

"Mostly. He's a good guy, Eren. He never wanted to do it either." He has an imploring look in his gaze, like he wants me to believe that it's true.

_They must have been really good friends for Heichou to talk about him this way, _I think, and a deep sadness begins to seep through me—knowing that there is no Farlan in Levi's future.

"He's a much better person than we are," he goes on. "He wants to help people."

Help people? "I wish I could have helped you more," I admit, my gaze falling. "I couldn't…" _I couldn't do anything. I couldn't Titan shift in that time. If only I could have, but I couldn't. And I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry for failing you. _The feeling washes over me, cold and nauseating: helplessness. I had thought that he was the helpless one, but now I'm realizing that—really—it's me who is fated to have no power here.

"Ehh," he shrugs, like it's no big deal, like I'm not going to have to go back there and crush his heart and soul if I want this to stay the reality for him. "No one could have kept us from Kenny. Don't beat yourself up over shit like that. What happened happened."

I'm ready to cry, now. Trying desperately to hold it back. Under any other circumstances his hapless, forgiving nature would make me feel better, but not now. No matter what he says four years later, I know that he won't understand when I actually have to do it.

"It hasn't happened yet, though," I whisper.

I glance up at him from under the scraggly bangs that fall into my face to watch his grey eyes widen just a hair when things click into place. He simply says, "Oh." I know he understands though, I can see it in his face, in the way he holds his mouth—frozen, thinking.

I imagine that he's thinking things over, deciding what to say next now that he understands just how much power he actually has here. One word from him now—one order—and he can change his life forever. By the way that I'm watching him so closely, searching for any sign, any _hint_ of a desire hidden within his thoughtful expression, he _must _know that I'm waiting to hear what he wants me to do. Because whatever it is, I'll do it. Anything he says. Anything he wants.

Even if it's hard—even if it's, _"Don't do anything, then. You fucked up my life enough already. Just stay out of it this time." _Even that, I would do for him.

But instead he says, "Oi, Eren. Look, don't get all worked up. Just do whatever you think is the best choice."

I can't help it, the tears start to fall.

"You have to believe in your choices, whatever you think you'll—"

I lose the rest of what he says when the big black drops start to fall. "Levi?" His mouth is still moving. What is he saying? I have to know, _I have to know_. "Levi?!" The blackness falls into the center of my eye, like a drip of ice. His face is covered, I can't see through the oil anymore.

_No, no, don't make me leave yet. I want to stay here just for a little while. _

Even as my limbs start to freeze and my throat goes numb, even as my senses all fail me, I'm still reaching out to him. I want to be here with him _now,_ after one hell and before another. Before everything will inevitably unravel for him again.

But it's pointless. I already know what I have to do. In an agonizing second, I'm gone.

* * *

Even before the oil releases me, I already know where I am. _Where I have to be._

I don't open my eyes yet. There's no need. The sound of the wind and rain makes it abundantly clear. I'm back in the cave, lying on the floor, trying not to shiver too much so as not to wake him.

Levi is here, curled up against my body like a content little kitten, practically purring in his sleep. Not purring—he's not that happy—I have to remind myself. _Don't romanticize this. He trusts you, Eren. Don't you dare do that to him. _

When I finally open my eyes to squint through the dark, he's there exactly as I remember: his knees scrunched up tight, gently pressing into my tummy, his thin arms—like bird's wings—folded neatly in between us, knuckles soft against my chest. And his face is calm and sweet in sleep. _I still can't believe he's fifteen here….he's only a child. _

I wish that I could have arrived here earlier—say an hour or two ago—before I said those words that I can't keep no matter how much I want to. _"I won't let him get you. You don't have to worry, anymore. You're safe. We'll keep practicing and then we'll go above ground, alright? I promise."_ Why is fate so unkind to us that I can't even have the chance never to say those words? At least that way it might be less of a betrayal.

I know that they'll be coming soon—fate isn't kind enough to give me long. I take a risk and shift inside of the cloaks just enough to wrap my arm over his side. Eyes closed, I feel him breathe—chest moving in quick, shivery motions—I feel his heartbeat.

"I'm so, so sorry," I breathe out over his head.

He doesn't answer me, of course. I don't want an answer anyway. Deep down I already have one, even though it hurts so much that I can barely stand the ache in my chest. _He'll understand someday. He told you that himself. _

But still, when I hear them start fiddling with the rocks in the crack, I nearly lose my resolve all together.

Somehow my shaking legs find the strength to get up, tucking Levi back into the cloaks as I go. "It's ok," I lie as he groans in waking and squints up at me. I can feel my voice start quaking out of control. _Keep it together, Eren._

He believes me—_oh god, he believes me_—and he just stays there while I tip toe across the cave to meet them before they can break into what's left of our sanctuary. Even when I pick the last stone out of the crack in the cave wall and Sammy says something in alarm, all Levi does is sit up in the bundle of cloaks. Silent and trusting.

"_Get back_ or I'll—" Sammy starts aggressively. I anticipate him going for the gun, so I quickly stop him.

"Relax," I say in a low voice. I don't want Levi to hear me. I can't. I can't do this. "I….was expecting you to come." They stare at me, Sammy angrily and Farlan's blonde mop sticking out behind Sammy's shoulder, looking utterly confused. I have to swallow three times before I can get enough moisture in my throat to keep talking. But still, I can only just manage to choke the words out, "He's inside."

They look at me like there are horns growing out of my head. I know that my face is burning red with shame over this, but if I don't hurry up then I'll lose it all together, so I just turn away and wave them inside.

That's a mistake. I shouldn't have turned around because Levi is there standing a few feet behind me. His eyes are huge.

"What's going on, Eren?" He knocks the wind out of me just with that question. My lungs fill up with led. _I can't._ "Eren?"

I think I'm crying but no tears come out. "Bring the cloaks," I say so flatly that I can't recognize my own voice. I keep talking even when his face twitches in uncertainty. "It's too wet here, we gotta move until things dry up."

He shifts his gaze. "Who're you?"

I glance behind me. Sure enough, Sammy and Farlan are inside the cave now, looking slightly less sure of their mission since I'm being so cooperative, but they must appear semi threatening in the dark none the less.

I want to comfort him now. I want to assure him.

But I can't.

"Get the cloaks," I tell him. "Come on, let's go."

_Hurry up. Hurry up, hurry up, _I keep telling myself over and over while he stares at me—searching—and when he goes back to pick the discarded cloaks. He glances back at me over his shoulder. _He's too smart for this. He knows. Of course he knows. _

I grab the 3DMG from near the wall and put a hand on Levi's shoulder as I walk past on my way over to Sammy. He's tense under my hand now. I don't stay next to him, I go to the others. "Ok?"

"Yeah…." Sammy says awkwardly. His dark eyes swipe over me. He looks almost as confused as Farlan now, but he says nothing. He just motions for Levi. "Get over here, let's go."

Levi comes over to me slowly. The cloaks are bunched up in his arms, hugging them tightly to his chest. His chin is tucked down low, making his hair fall into his eyes, and I can't see his expression. We all slip back through the crack one at a time, Farlan first, then Sammy and Levi and I'm last. When I stuff the last rock into place I have to tear my eyes away from the shut up cave. I could have stayed there forever with him. And now—

"Where the hell are we going?" Levi snaps all of a sudden. My heart picks up its pounding. It's like _Heichou_ is challenging me.

It occurs to me that he might try to run away. I don't think about it—it's like my body is on autopilot now—I just put my arm around him and steer him along with the others. "I met them earlier," I say: not a lie. "Everything'll be fine, alright?"

When we get farther into the city his shoulders hunch up defensively. I know he's starting to doubt me now, and that hurts a little, but it's the fact that he still wants to believe me, that he wants to trust me so much that even now, even _still_ he'll follow along even though he knows. He has to know.

"Eren," he hisses, leaning up to whisper in my ear. His cheek brushes against my shoulder. "Where the hell are we going? You need to tell me right now."

I try to answer but nothing comes out. I can _feel_ him looking at me; first he's expectant but before long he realizes that I'm not going to answer him and it changes into anger. I know him well enough now to expect it when he tries to duck out from under my arm and I'm quick enough to stop him.

Sammy is there to help. There isn't even that much of a scuffle. We're too big for him and he has nothing on me now that I know what to expect from him.

But it's no relief when the struggle ends. Seeing Levi subdued like this—Sammy's fist knotted up in his pretty black hair, pain and anger and hurt written all over his face—all I feel is hatred. Not for Farlan, not for Sammy, not even for Kenny. Right now it's all for me.

_I'm sorry. _I can't say it, it just dies in my constricted chest every time I even attempt to get it out. He gives me one vicious glare and then he stops looking at me all together. All at once I feel like I've lost something precious.

Ah yes, there they are, the tears finally coming. And a wicked little voice mocks me in the back of my head. _Better not start crying yet, dumbass. You're not done with him. _

They don't have to drag him for very long. He trudges along when he knows he's beaten, keeping his head down except when Sammy yanks it up with a particularly rough jerk of the hair. And when that happens I make sure to look away. I don't think I could bare seeing the look on his face.

When the familiar sound of those big doors opening meets my ears, my stomach instantly drops to my feet. Farlan and Sammy pause in the doorway. They exchange a glance and then Farlan looks to me, saying, "You can go."

"No, I want to talk to Kenny."

I close my eyes when Levi chokes. On spit, on tears, on the sound of my words—he can't possibly deny what's happening anymore. It's a real sob when it comes out. "Eren!"

"Shut up," Sammy snaps, twisting Levi's head hard enough to make him cry out. Anger rips through me and for one second I want to murder him…before I remember whose fault this actually is.

"Take…take me to Kenny," I croak out.

"No! No, Eren, _please_!" he's crying, screaming at me accusingly. "Don't fucking do this, Eren, god please don't do this to me!"

Farlan takes a jerking step away from where Levi and Sammy are struggling again. He looks like he might be sick. "I—I'll take you to see Kenny," he says quickly, the syllables all tumbling out in a rush, his voice forced and loud in order to be heard over the commotion.

I nod without feeling it and Farlan leads me away. I can't bring myself to look back at Levi because I know it will destroy me. If I turn back and see his beautiful face smeared with tears and blotchy red from crying, imploring me, _begging me_ with those desperate eyes, I know that I'll stop myself from doing all of this and run back to rescue him once and for all—thus completely distorting his future for good. So I stop myself from looking. But nothing can stop me from hearing him scream, _"You promised!"_

Sammy drags him off to another area of the house and must get him quiet somehow, because I don't hear the reverberating echoes of his angry sobbing for long. I'm almost thankful.

It's a long walk to Kenny, just like it was the first time and by the time I reach him I've had to gulp down vomit twice. No matter how many times I tell myself that this is for the best and that everything will work out in the end, nothing makes me feel less guilty. Even reminding myself that Levi_ himself_ told me that I should go with what seems best doesn't help me.

"He's inside," Farlan says quietly once we reach the door to Kenny's room. I turn to look at him and find that he's avoiding my gaze like I'm nothing but a monster. And I guess he's right. Right now, that's all I am.

"I'm so sorry," I groan. Somehow I can say it to him but not to Levi. _I'm sorry about Levi. I'm sorry about you, too. I'm sorry about whatever happened to you before to put you here and I'm sorry about what's going to happen to you in the future that I'm protecting right now. I'm sorry, I know it might be selfish, but I need my Levi Heichou to exist later on. And I'm not the only one who needs him. All of Humanity is counting on him being himself: Humanity's Strongest. _

He shakes his head and the motion is so small that I almost miss it. Clearly he doesn't want to hear it. He opens the door and ushers me inside. It's just as dim and yellow as it was a few hours ago when I was here. A few hours ago? No, that's not possible. It was a lifetime ago. Perhaps two lifetimes.

"Father?" Farlan calls, much more tentatively than Sammy did it the last time. He sounds like he's very nauseous, every word metered and tight.

It takes Kenny longer to come out of the side door this time. No banging against the wall, no grand entrance, just an old devil in a long black cloak. Someone who I can genuinely hate—not like these other boys.

"The Levi that you were looking for is here, sir," Farlan says, head down. "Sammy had to take him for a little while. He was being difficult. I'm sorry."

"Fine," he says with a wave of his hand. "When you two idiots work up the balls to get that _kid_ in line, you feel free to bring him to me." Farlan goes pale as a ghost, apparently more frightened by Kenny's words than I would even presume to be. I see an opportunity.

"He's very difficult, sir. He's not just a little kid," I claim bravely.

Kenny throws me a sidelong glance and then looks back to Farlan. "Who the fuck is this, boy?"

"He's—"

"Since when are you allowed to bring people in here?"

"I'm sorry!" he gasps. "He—he—he's the one who, he handed Levi over to us, sir!"

_He handed Levi over…_I feel my face bathed red in shame once again. How am I supposed to live with that on me?

"Did he now?"

I want to disappear and erase my sorry, powerless self from existence. _Not yet, you don't, _come the mocking voice. _You better finish what you started or this is all for nothing. They'll just do the same old thing to him as before and you know it. And then Levi Heichou will never exist. _

"Yes, that…that was me," I say. The man turns back to glare at me with those wicked, vermin-like eyes and once I know I have his full attention I let the words come pouring out of me. "I heard that you were looking for him and I figured I should let you have him…out of respect and all." The word 'respect' nearly sticks on my tongue and refuses to come out. But I force it and go on, "He's a pain in my ass anyway. The little shit nearly killed me three or four times before he finally settled down." He raises a graying eyebrow in surprise. Levi? Kill someone? He doesn't believe me, but I'll convince him that Levi is more than just a tiny body and he's more than just a whore's son. He's so much more than what they want to make him. "I was trying to be good to him, you know, military charity while I was passing through—that sort of thing. But he kept stealing my stuff when my back was turned. Sneaky little bastard. He can get away with anything, that kid. He's small as fuck, I mean, so nobody suspects him. You'll have to watch out for that one. And he's smart. He figured out how to use this in an hour flat," I say, patting my 3DMG.

Just as I had hoped, that catches his ear. "Levi? You're telling me that _that Levi _knows how to fly?"

I say, "Like an angel," and I mean it. The tears are threatening to constrict my throat, now, and escape. I have to hurry up. "Anyway, I'm leaving the underground and heading back to Stohess in the morning. I didn't want to leave him on his own, he's a good soldier. He takes orders well. So like I said, out of respect I brought him back to you, Mr. Ackerman."

He seems pleased by what I'm saying. Do I dare to believe that he'll actually buy it? I pause and lift a hand to my chin to express thoughtfulness. It's trembling and I have to mentally tell it to stop before I can go on. "I'm sorry for keeping him from you for the past few days. I probably should have brought him sooner—knowing that you were looking for him and all," I shrug. My hands dip to my sides and the gear starts coming off. "But I'll make it up to you. I'll leave these for him." I let all of my gear fall to the ground and the clatter of metal seems to echo deafeningly throughout the room, making me wince. I want this to be over. "It's no problem, I can get another one. I'm sure with this, you'll be able to put him to good use."

There. That's all I can do. My stomach is threatening me with bitter nausea that never seems to lessen. That has to be enough. The words hurt when I said them and they still hurt now. I can't do anymore.

The look Kenny is giving me is odd, but all I can register is that it isn't one of disbelief. I planted the seed. Now the idea that tiny little Levi is good for something else in his organization other than prostitution is thoroughly planted in his mind. Whether it will grow today or a year from now, I don't know. But I've planted it. That's all I can do.

"Well…." He is saying, rubbing his hands together, "happy travels then. And thanks very much for the gift, Mr. Military Man."

I stare at him for a moment longer before turning on heel and stalking out of the room. As soon as I'm around the corner I'm bent over throwing up onto the already filthy floor. It doesn't seem to stop. I'm shivering and convulsing, totally racked to the core.

Where is the oil? Why hasn't it come to take me away yet?

I'm still bent in half, clutching my knees to keep from falling, trembling so hard that my teeth clatter. That's when Farlan walks past me.

"Hey!" I shout to him when he tries to keep on walking. His steps falter and then he halts at the sight of me. It's a chore just to stand up all the way but I fight through it, straightening until we're eye to eye. I must reek of vomit and sweat, and by now I've realized that I'm full out crying as well, but Farlan just stands there staring. He's probably seen a million things worse during his short life than a disheveled Eren Jaegar. "You…." I begin. My voice cracks and fails me. Wiping snot from my nose with the back of my hand, I have to pause and try again. I look deep into his eyes, deep enough to make him raise his brow and really listen to me. "He _needs _someone," I say desperately. "It can't be me, yet. So it has to be you."

His eyebrows droop in confusion.

"Levi," I say, "Do you understand what I'm saying to you?"

In a moment, I see his eyes come more fully to life and I pray that means he gets it. _Thank god, _I think, _thank god. Now let this be all. Let me go back. _

A deep exhaustion come over me like a southerly wind, blowing me back against the wall until my legs sink low and I find myself in a puddle of god knows what. So what? What does it matter? I pull my knees up to my chest and let my forehead droop down upon them. Is Farlan still here? Here? Where _is_ here? I don't know….I don't even care. I can't even think anymore. I just close my eyes and wait for the oil to come.

* * *

Pale morning light makes the inside of my eyelids a warm coral color. _It's pretty. _That's the first thought I have.

I'm surrounded by warmth and softness, like I'm floating in a beach cloud over the sea—not quite stable yet—swaying slightly. My eyes must have been glued shut for a long, long time because they open in slow motion. Each millimeter is an effort. At first it's all blurry. It's so light here, so _bright_. What is that beautiful kind of light that makes everything in the room look so free?

"He's awake!" the voice at the other end of the room is saying. A room, yes, that's it, a room. Not a beach. In fact, I think I know this room. As things slowly come into focus, I realize that I'm in my own bedroom back in the Survey Corp HQ, lying in my bed. Right? Yes…that's it…

"He's awake, he's awake!" a lady is practically chanting. She comes toward my bed from the other side of the room where she'd been standing—a sparkly shadow of light before, but a person now. I recognize her all of a sudden.

"Ha—Hanji san…"

"Eren~!" she wails. "How do you feel? What happened? You've been unconscious for—" she keeps talking but I can't keep up with it all. My mind is still too scattered for that. Her voice carries on like a little child's might—so excited and bubbling.

But it's the calm voice that comes next which snaps me back to attention.

"Oi, four-eyes…stop running your mouth. Can't you see he's delirious?"

"B-but, I think we should—"

"Go tell Erwin he's awake so that he'll stop worrying. Once Eren's feeling better you can ask him all the questions you want, right brat?"

_He's talking to you. _I roll my head on the pillow to face the extra weight dipping the bed where Levi sits beside me.

"R—right."

Levi nods at Hanji and she reluctantly sighs and goes traipsing out of my room in search of Erwin. Levi Heichou doesn't move when the door clicks shut behind her, doesn't move when the sound of her footsteps disappear down the hallway, he doesn't he move after whole minutes have passed by.

I don't think I should say anything. It's just too hard to even consider doing something like that. I mean, after what I just did to him…however many years ago it was or not….however things may have turned out…I still can't forgive myself.

Even if it was the right choice…

We sit in silence for so long that my strength starts to come back to me, rejuvenated by my Titan powers. When I'm sure that I can, I prop myself up in bed, first on an elbow and then up all the way onto my bottom.

I still can't bring myself to talk to him, but I will my eyes to make their way in the direction of his own. Surprisingly when I get there, I find him already looking at me. And there's nothing even remotely close to anger in his eyes.

"How are you feeling?" he asks me.

I shrug lightly and it doesn't really hurt all that bad. But still, my heart is so heavy with all that I've seen that I just can't bring myself to say anything more positive than, "Not too well, Heichou."

"Mmm. I was wondering when you would go back," he says softly. "I didn't expect it to be during shifting practice."

Ahh yes, that's what had happened. The memory returns to me like a snowflake melting inside of my head—gently and all at once.

I raise my eyes to fully meet Levi's. He has his usual calm expression, but his eyes are deeper than usual. Much deeper. "When I joined the Corp…and I lost Farlan and Isabel…that's when I remembered about_ you_, Eren. I knew that you'd come but honestly I was expecting a stupid, over enthusiastic recruit shitting his pants after one of Erwin's speeches, not a Titan. Even though your name was Eren, the fact that you were a shifter kept me from suspecting that you were _my_ Eren."

_My Eren._

"It was in the court room, when I finally got a good look at you in the light," he shakes his head slightly, "there was just no denying it. And then later on, the first time that you said it."

"Said what?"

"Levi Heichou." He says his own title as if in reverence, in awe that those words are real and have meaning now after years of being whispered into his memories like the shadow of birds wings beating out of reach. "When you said it a few weeks ago—that's when I knew, Eren. So many people call me that but it's never the same as you."

"So you remembered for once and I didn't…" I mutter. _How odd_, I think. I don't like the idea that I had been clueless about our relationship for the past few weeks while Levi had had to wonder about it all alone. I know that feeling. It's too lonely. My head is so heavy, this is all too much for me to take in—I've just come around after all—so I allow my neck to droop down until Levi has no choice but to cradle it in his lap. I can feel the thin, muscular curves of his thighs under my head, my crown pressing against his stomach. His breathing is deep and slow and I sigh in time with him. "Is that why you were always staring at me, Heichou? Trying to see if I remembered you?"

"Tch." That familiar annoyed sound that I've grown to love makes me close my eyes and almost smile, despite it all. I feel the whisper of his hand reaching up to brush my hair out of my face. "That's right, brat. On top of making sure you didn't fuck anything up, I was waiting, wondering when that dumbfuck look of worship for me would finally go away."

My eyes pop open again, slightly disturbed. "What? Why would it go away?"

Levi's face is above mine, the wrong way around, looking down at me with a calm, resigned sadness in his eyes—older eyes, but still the same. Still a little boy who fits under my arm, whispering in the night that he's worthless.

How can he feel this way? Still? Did he really think that I would feel differently about him after I remembered that I know everything about him? Every horrid, gut wrenching detail that he never tells a living soul? If anyone should be nervous here, it's me.

When he doesn't say anything—only rests his hand on my forehead—I realize that it must be true. It makes me sad to think that he actually thought I would ever think less of him. _Don't you know by now, Heichou? If I told you, would you even be able to believe how much I love you? _

It's still silent and I know by the tense slump of his body that he's thinking things through. I want to kill all of his worries and embarrassments. He doesn't deserve any of them. He's the strongest person—not just Humanities Strongest _Soldier_—he's the strongest person I have ever met, going through all he has and still being so selfless and wise. People judge him harshly for being difficult, but none of them know him like I do. None of them understand.

I pick myself up out of his lap and kneel in the bed before him, the blankets bunching up around my knees in the sort of disorganized way that probably bothers him. He turns his steely eyes on my face slowly, studying me all the way up and lingering, and inside the stream where out gazes converge I swear I can see his soul right there, laid bare before me. And there is a question inside.

"Well…I hope it doesn't annoy you too much, Heichou, because that look is never going to go away," I whisper, leaning close until my nose is only a breath away from his. Something like innocent, honest surprise sparks in his eyes. "I'm glad I could go back and be with you when you needed someone," I say against the skin of his neck, leaning down onto him and holding him until his arms come up to meet me. "I don't care about anything else, Levi. Just that I'm your soldier and you're my hero."

**Notes: THE END~ Phew~ wowwww thank you so much to everyone who stuck with this story. It was a cool experience writing it and I hope that you liked it, found it interesting, inspiring, moving, or all of the above^^ I love Levi and I love Ereri and I really hope I did them some justice. Let me know whatcha think!**  
**xoxoxoxo addison (p.s. don't be bummed that this one is over. if you want other stuff like this, i do take fic requests either on here or on my tumblr: heichou-my-boo)**


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